Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Wednesday morning that India's rapid growth has led to new opportunities for corruption, but he underscored his government's commitment to tackling it.
Mr. Singh, speaking at a televised conference of watchdog agencies, said steps had been taken to directly transfer welfare payments to poor people's bank accounts in order to circumvent corruption in India's distribution system. He also noted that changes are being considered to give more teeth to the national anti-graft law, including a move to introduce corporate failure to prevent bribery as an offense.
Mr. Singh's government has been besieged by corruption scandals in recent years . The last session of Parliament was thwarted by calls from the opposition party for Mr. Singh's resignation over the alleged mishandling of coal concessions, estimated to have cost the treasury $34 billion. That and other scandals have exposed India's brazen crony capitalism and renewed public anger.
Mr. Singh, however, argued Wednesday for “the need to protect honest public servants and keep the morale of the executive intact.â€
“The mindless atmosphere of negativity and pessimism that is sought to be created over the issue of corruption can do us no good,†he said.
Mr. Singh, who is credited with having helped liberalized India's markets in the early 1990s, said corruption associated with government monopolies, quotas and permits, before India opened up its economy, had been reduced. But he stressed the need for investigative agencies to bolster their skills and techniques to catch up with newer forms of corruption.
Graft cases in India typi cally drag on for years. India has a Prevention of Corruption Act and a variety of watchdog agencies, but the agencies' effectiveness is often questioned because they answer to politicians. A proposal last year to establish an anti-corruption ombudsman did not pass Parliament.
