The death of innocent children concern me more than any thing else. Every year, the country loses about 1.8 million babies who die before they could celebrate their first birth day. And the sad part is these deaths, at least 70 percent are preventable. Not only that, children remain at the risk of loosing their lives on their way to schools. Several has been crushed on the roads or drown in the rivers before they could see their dreams get fulfilled. Many never knew that they will be buried alive with the tricolour in their hands by the unsafe buildings during Gujrat earthquake. Just remember the death of eight year old Jyotsna in the escalator of Indira Gandhi International Air Port. Suraj Kund swing tragedy hurtling 3 joy riders, including 8 year-old girl, to death from a height of 20 meters. Countless innocent are still dying at the altar of our corrupt and mismanaged governance. Our irresponsible attitude towards our motherland, for our narrow gains, are responsible for the deaths of many innocent lives and the poor state of our country.

I still hope to see the new dawn of knowledge, prosperity, strength and dignity of real India. Now is the time to wake up, else there is going to be too dark by the poisonous clouds of corruption. Our survival will depend on our own strength and not on the basis of any friendship/partnership with any country. I would like to narrate a simple incidence, that I feel have some contribution to these killings and almost every such incidence is a real curse to our society. Although, it is a very common event for the general public who have adopted to such happenings as a way of life yet I consider it to be the most dangerous signals regarding the future of this country.

During 1979, I have booked a MIG flat with DDA with Priority No. 28133. Subsequently I had opted for DDA's "AVAS SAKAR YOJANA". On 29th Oct 1999, when I could not afford to be a member of any Group Housing Society, I opted back to the old scheme ( IV th Registration Scheme for New pattern 1979, HUDCO ) as per the prescribed rules.

I have been to DDA's office for 9 times to get my name included in the subsequent draws but failed in my efforts. During my every visit, I was assured that my name will be cleared for the regular draw which I can verify after one week's time. During my 9th visit, when I got a little out of my nerves, the concerned person took me to a corner of the staircase, with a smile on his face, and gave me a good lecture on corruption. He narrated me his own problems by telling that he was forced to give Rs. 12000 to the principal of a school for the admission of his child and have to pay some black money to purchase his own house. I expressed my helplessness to help him get out of debt.

I returned home disappointed. On my way back, the auto-driver narrated his CNG problem to justify his high charges. Back home there was no power supply and my family was furious for not accepting their demand for an inverter. My wife too sniffed me that I should have settled in Canada like her friend as I don't know the art to survive in this country. 

Finally it was sun set and a severe headache from the hot and humid weather. When the sounds of loudspeakers from a nearby religious place was too unbearable, I have to swallow two tablets of disprins but that too ditched me as I may have taken a mere chalk powder. Momentarily I forgot about my MIG flat, I was seeing complete India going to the drain like sewage filled Yamuna.

After reading the news in the Times of India that " 10,000 DDA files vanished in thin air ", Mr. H. D. Shourie's article " Cleaning India " of 27th June 2001 and Mr. Murad Ali Baig's " The Many Colours of Indian Corruption ", I realized that it is better not to waste any more time a t the DDA's office.

Today, India, which in the past was proud of its knowledge, prosperity, strength and dignity, is being seen as the country with majority of corrupt and beggars, a country being ruined by its own people. Here when there is no rain, people die of drought. When there is plenty of grains, people still die of starvation due to our sluggish and mismanaged governance. 

Recently it was learnt that our Intelligence agencies are probing ISI hand in fake rupee racket. But, what about our indigenous fake drugs, fake traffic challan, fake degrees, fake National Certificates, fake gas cylinders, Tempered meters, fake doctors, fake universities, fake inspectors, fake surgery, unlimited scams. Yes, here you can have any thing fake. Here, even the smallest business man know the innovative art to cheat the public. The list is unlimited, as with almost every product their fake is easily available. It appears that most of the us has lost our faith in our judiciary and democratic system.

We may survive even after thousands of earthquakes that hit Gujrat, several Chinese aggressions, even the worst nuclear wars but, if the corruption is not tackled seriously, India is going to be the dustbin for our own children. Today, those who have smiles on their faces, because they feel they will remain secured by the power and fortunes they have attained through corrupt means, are in fact leading India to a situation where their own children may not find some one to light their pyres. 

If we can get rid of corruption, we will be so rich and powerful that none of us will ever need to depend on any corrupt means. It is a great misunderstanding of those who believe that they and their children can remain more comfortable by poisoning the society by their corrupt means; as there is no assurance that they will be always lucky from our routine self made disasters like train accidents, plain hijacking, road accidents, Uphar tragedy, mustered oil tragedy, synthetic milk, duplicate drugs, fake doctors, polluted air, impure drinking water, Bhopal gas tragedy, Suraj Kund swing tragedy, kidnappings, AIDS and so on. So, if you are sure to die, why not die honestly. 

It is said that," there is a unique faculty in only Indian minds that represents their tolerant behaviour, and we are still alive due to this basic factor, else there could have been several civil wars". It is strange that nobody is able to see that there is already a silent civil war in which almost every body is involved in the looting spree. For an average Indian, the country is only for the leaders to look after, and he is not supposed to look beyond the walls of his house. If he sees his neighbour's house burning, he enjoys it, he takes it as re-creation movie, with a firm belief that this can not happen to him. And, if the burning house doesn't belong to his cast community, he will be the most satisfied. This short sightedness and self centered attitude of an average Indian is responsible for our slavery in the past. We have not learnt any lesson from the past as yet, we don't know how to live in a free country. Majority of us with self centered attitude, corrupt behaviour, diseased and ill- nourished body, confused mind, depression from poverty and family burdens, restlessness from heat and dust, fear of inspectors, no confidence in the guardians of law, confusion by spiritual leaders, uncertain future, prefer to loot with all means our own brothers and sisters. Is it not worse than any civil war where nobody is going to win? 

Now a days, Corruption remained the topic of writers, tea -time discussion and for highly intelligent vigilance officers but they can't win this war till they don't get the support of serious people and adopt the latest technology in a meaningful way. It is certain that we are going to push India to a very disappointing stage if we are not prepared to take the rightful, courageous and timely step. The situation is already very critical and there is a need to do something drastic, something, which is actually required. We know that two plus three is always five, and if we continue to say it as approximately four we should better deal with some other subject. Similarly, to any problem there can be only one perfect solution, provided we really know the root cause of the problem. It appears that we don't know the real cause of the corruption or the concerned persons ignore it to remain comfortable in their own kingdom. We need to uproot the tree from its root if we are really willing to pull it down and should not waste our time cutting its branches while sitting on its top just for sake of our publicity. We need to know the basic cause of all the problems if we are really keen to clean our country. Can we clean the Yamuna without cleaning India? Majority of us look to the problem like the story of blind men and the elephant. We are wasting lot of human energy and funds because of our poor planning and mismanagement. We don't have the courage to cross some real barriers for fear of loosing our own comforts. We create more problems during solving a problem, and just go on solving the new problems. The recent bulldozing activities in Delhi are the example of our careless planning, liberty to misuse the laws, crude and clumsy governance that takes too long to wake up, giving ample time to the disease to flourish. 

Sometimes the main solution is visible to the concerned persons but they avoid it due to lack of will power; or the problem is not yet reported to them in the noting of the files; or there is no FIR or PIL by any person; or they are not going to get any award. There is no need to remind us that the core issue is administrative reforms only. The administrative reforms need to be a continuous process and requires corrective action without any delay, based on the prevailing conditions. Here the delay makes all the problems as by the time we decide to act the ground situation changes for a different action. 

So, I am sure that the solution to clean India lies with IT and the computer technology mainly as it can help to attain speed and accuracy. We have to apply the power of this science for efficient handling of our administrative system and to create transparency from top to bottom and bottom to top, so that our administrators may immediately know the problems. It is pity that the guardians of the nation are not able to harness the powers of IT to feel pulse of the nation on real time basis. Managing a nation is several fold complex than flying a plane and thus requires efficient and reliable communication for prompt actions. Remember, the history tells us that those who could handle the technology of their time in a better way, remained the masters. There was a time of swords and arrows, of guns, tanks, planes, satellites and nuclear arms. Now, it is the time of computers and IT, which luckily suits the Indian brains. But, if we fail to be disciplined and remained evolved in our narrow interests, IT of the world will reduce us to the ape's generation. To-day even the most powerful nation can tremble if it fails to adopt the perfect IT technology. Also, we need to simplify the laws to the extent that they don't confuse the common voter as they are the pillar of our democracy and they have the right to live with dignity and without confusion. 

As a beginning to the right direction, I wish to give the following as a suggestion to the concerned authorities.

Monitoring of movement of files

1. We need to monitor the movement of files/letters of every department on real time basis by the use of IT technology. For this purpose, an independent department preferably under CVC with the underlying objectives is desirable. 

i) Every individual ( babu to secretary ) should be required to maintain independent register to record dispatch/received details of all files/letters that pass through his/her table. Once in a day, every one should be required to transfer the details of his diary to the central data base by the use internet/intranet. 

ii) The names of files/letters should be generated as per prescribed set of rules, by the use of software available on the internet by invoking central data base. That is, as soon as a new file is created, the smart monitoring software should track all its movements till the file is officially closed after completion of the target.

iii) Details of each employee should also be available on the central data base and the server should indicate the location of any file against the name/post/place of a particular employee.

The main monitoring software should perform the following main functions:

a. Any abnormal holdup of a file by any person.
b. Any lost file.
c. Any abnormal movement of files.
d. Work load at different tables.
e. In some cases, public should be able to see the status of their case directly on the Internet.
f. Once the system becomes operational, efforts should be continued to make the complete governance paperless and crystal clear.

Monitoring of movement of individuals


1. We need to monitor the movement of each person. 

i) Details of each person should be available on the central data base.

ii) With unique identity number, photo and voice sample so that the computer may be able to check the identity from voice of a person

iii) At some specific places, every person should be required to feed his/her unique No. and voice for transfer to central monitoring data base system.

Electronic money 

1. We should shift from cash to electronic money for all transactions of Rs. 100 or more, to make it mandatory to record each transaction at the central data base through the authorised banks. Once we adopt the electronic system, we should go for the following:

i) We should simplify our tax collection system. For example, if we just charge 1% of all transactions, we will not need to collect any taxes through complex systems. By adopting this system we can increase the tax payers from just 2.2 % to above 70 % and that too without any IT department.

ii) This system has got many hidden benefits, and has the ultimate power to eliminate corruption and the black money.

iii) The tax collection will become the fastest system of the world and the tax revenues can be utalised instantly through the electronic money transfer system.