Does eGovernment Reduce Corruption Findings from Eight Indian Projects

1
Does eGovernment Reduce Corruption?Findings
from Eight Indian Projects

• Subhash Bhatnagar
• subhash_at_iimahd.ernet.in

2
Corruption in India A story of Despair Hope
In the series of in-depth reports and analyses
we published in the first phase of our India
Poised initiative, the collapse of governance
consistently came through as the most serious
deterrent to a better quality of life. Times of
India
India fares abysmally on the global corruption
meter 20 believe government does not fight
corruption at all 39 think its fight against
corruption is ineffective and 15 say that far
from fighting corruption, government actually
encourages it. Transparency International
Corruption has shown a declining trend While 28
per cent of citizens participated in the survey
admitted that they have dealt through middlemen,
a sharp decline from 48 per cent in 2000, 30 per
cent admitted of giving bribe, which was 51 per
cent in 2000. Survey by Centre for Media
Studies, which covered eight major public utility
services
3
Consequences of Administrative Corruption

• Largest cost is borne by the poor
• Raises cost of doing business for SMEs by 20
• Irritant to investors, impedes FDI flows
• Loss of revenue to Government
• Disincentive to honest employees, citizens
• Citizens feel that corruption is largest hurdle
  in Indias progress. Increasing tolerance for
  corruption.
• Petty corruption opportunities - larger
  corruption in appointments, transfers used to
  collect funds for politicians

4
Types of Corruption in Government-to-Citizen
Contact

• Administrative corruption
• Service is denied or delayed unless bribe is paid
• Collusion (both parties gain at the expense of
  Government)
• Favored allocation when mismatch between supply
  and demand
• Lower valuation by Tax collection agencies
• Waiving of penalties and fines
• Tempering government records to provide unfair
  advantage
• Extortion
• Law enforcers, tax collectors make blatantly
  unreasonable demands to extort a bribe

5
Measuring eGovernment Impact on Corruption

• Studies attempted to measure impact on corruption
  (GKSP-4 projects in 2001MIT/IITB ethnographic
  study in 2004 World Bank/IIMA/DIT in 2006)
• Results from different studies, same project over
  time have been inconclusive on impact on
  corruption
• Impact reported is from an assessment of 8 mature
  projects in India through a systematic client
  survey in the World Bank/DIT/IIMA study.

6
Projects Which Were Assessed

• Issue of land titles in Karnataka (Bhoomi) 180
  Kiosks, Launched February 2001 2-01
• Property registration in Karnataka (Kaveri) 230
  offices 3-03
• Computerized Treasury (Khajane) 240 locations
  11-02
• Property Registration in Andhra Pradesh AP 400
  offices. 11-98
• eSeva center in Andhra Pradesh 250 locations in
  190 towns, Used monthly by 3.5 million citizens
  8-01
• e-Procurement in Andhra Pradesh 1-03
• Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) 16 Civic
  Service Centers 9-02
• Inter State Check Posts in Gujarat 10 locations
  3-2000

7
Measurement Framework Used
Stakeholders
Key Dimension of Impact
8
Methodology of Assessment

• Market Research agency used to administer survey
  instrument to users who had experienced delivery
  of computerized and manual services
• Sample size - 240 respondents per project (30
  randomly selected respondents from each of 8
  service delivery points).
• 8 locations chosen from 200-300 delivery points
  on the basis of activity levels and development
  index of catchment.
• Impact measured as difference between respondent
  ratings of computerized and manual systems.

9
Governance Issues Are Important
10
Proportion Paying Bribes (As a )
11
Amount of Bribes Paid
12
Overall Improvements Are Correlated with
Corruption
13
Egovernment-How does it Help?

• Introduces transparency in data,
  decisions/actions, rules, procedures, performance
  of Govt. agencies
• Automates processes to remove discretion
• Simplification of rules and reengineering
  processes
• Makes decisions traceable- tracks actions
• Introduces competition amongst delivery channels
  and departments
• Standardized documentation of comments/
  objections leads to effective supervision-
  through comparative indicators
• Builds accountability- greater access to info
  through web publishing-role of civil society
• Provides documentation for citizens to follow up
• Centralizes data for better audit and analysis.
  Integration of data across applications-provides
  improved intelligence. Enables unbiased sampling
  for audit purposes

14
Administrative Corruption Some Issues that Need
to be Fixed

• Large variation across projects, centers of
  projects.
• Projects that automated processes have no impact.
  Projects that focused on corruption and
  reengineered processes did well.
• Not enough political support to the corruption
  agenda
• Long history of collusion between corrupt civil
  servants and resourced citizens creates
  resistance.
• Lack of supervision in remote areas - problems of
  decentralization
• Large power distance between civil servants and
  citizens-afraid to assert and complain
• Poor mechanisms of complaint handling.
  Documentation is weak for investigation
• Weak investigation, slow judicial system - small
  chance of punishment