Strengthening of Ethical and Moral Values in Governance

Strengthening of Ethical and Moral Values in Governance

This article deals with ‘Strengthening of Ethical and Moral Values in Governance.’ This is part of our series on ‘Ethics’  . For more articles , you can click here

Problems of Governance in India

This whole scene has to be seen in the context of

  1. Corruption , Nepotism , favoritism , Crony Capitalism
  2. Misuse of power in  personal interest
  3. Red tapism : Undue delay in public service delivery because of complex procedures 
  4. Lack of Transparency
  5. Weak Accountability
  6. Lack of public participation in decision making
  7. Bureaucratic apathy particularly towards  weaker sections of society
  8. Status quoist and elitist orientation of bureaucracy
  9. Politicisation of Bureaucracy
  10. Criminalisation of politics

How to Strengthen Ethical Governance

For this, we need to take various steps in various fields

1 . Political Structure

  • Enforce expenditure limits on elections strictly
  • Bring Political Parties under RTI
  • Remove excessive protection given to tainted politicians

2. Statutory Structure

For this 2nd ARC has given various recommendations

  • Amend Prevention of Corruption Act
  • Enactment of Serious Economic Offences Act 
  • Integrity Pacts – When Government Organisation signs any contract with Private organisation, sign integrity pacts stating that if Private Organisation is found involved in any wrongdoing, contract will cancel automatically .

3. Institutional Structure

  • Strengthen and give more teeth to CVC , Lokpal , CBI etc

4. Social Infrastructure

Take help of society in reducing corruption and increasing Ethical Governance

  • Give Civic education in Schools
  • False Claims Act (USA) – If you think that there is wrongdoing in some organisation, gather evidences & produce it before court. If fine is imposed on that organisation , some portion of money from that fine will be given to litigant .
  • Social Audit : Social Audit can help in this regard.

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