If creation of institutions is the grand solution to the country’s woes, well then good luck to Lokpal enthusiasts. The country has a particular fascination with creating laws too. Somehow it is forgotten that the real problem in India is not the laws themselves but their implementation, or not the institutions themselves but their inherent deficiencies.
Here are some bland facts. India, according to the admission of Home Secretary GK Pillai, is 6,00,000 policemen short at all levels. While the United Nation’s recommends a police personnel-people ratio of 220 per one lakh population, in India it stands at 130 per one lakh. In most other more law-abiding European countries, the ratio is more than double.
There is a shortage of 630 Indian Police Service officers. AFP
There is a shortage of 630 Indian Police Service officers, people at the leadership position in the force. Currently, there are 3,383 IPS officers against the authorised strength of 4,013, according to the Home Ministry’s data.
The premier investigative agency, CBI, functions at 70 percent of its strength. This is the agency which is handed over cases of all kind to probe every other day.
“CBI is functioning with 30 percent of required staff which is delaying investigations,” the agency’s director AP Singh told reporters recently. “Though in CBI the staff gets 25 percent more salary, people don’t want to leave their home states. IPS officers are also reluctant to join the central cadre… We are loaded with the fresh cases from states, the Union government and from the courts.”
More than 10,000 criminal cases are pending with the agency right now. Its success at ensuring convictions has taken a hit in recent times. The conviction rate stands at around 65 percent. More than one-third of the public servants booked by it escape unpunished.
The judiciary presents a more dismal picture. There are more than three million cases pending at the courts across the country. The shortfall of judges stands at 265 in high courts. The total approved strength of the 21 high courts in the country is 895; we have 630 at present, according to the Law Ministry. We are talking about high court judges only, the number of judges at lower courts and the non-judicial manpower is much higher.
The significance of the police, the CBI and the judiciary in fighting corruption need not be overstated. That brings us to the main question. What’s the point in creating a new institution when we cannot meet the infrastructure needs of the existing ones? It is possible that the new institution would run into the teething problems familiar to all established ones.
Moreover, Lokpal will have to function with the help of these institutions at some point or the other. How can it expect more efficiency from them given the existing manpower problem? The permanent situation of scarcity in the government’s agencies creates scope for acts of illegal omission and commission and corruption. How exactly is the Lokpal going to address that?
We haven’t seen the so called `conscious’ civil society pressurising the government to get its house in order and sort out fundamental issues such as infrastructure. It’s not that they are not aware of the actual problem. But public spiritedness is about big publicity and playing to the gallery too. They have to take care of the visibility factor — grand ideas always get more attention. It does not matter if they are inherently flawed and bound to crash under the load of existential problems.
That would explain why Team Anna is so desperate about getting the prime minister in the ambit of Lokpal. It has managed to extract small yet significant concessions from the government over the Lokpal Bill but it would prefer to ignore them. The inclusion of the prime minister would provide that touch of grandness to their effort and sense of big achievement.
The country needs a civil society movement that is real, rooted to the ground and more pragmatic.
