A general tongue-lashing is not without its uses, but the Integrity India Campaign will achieve results only if it picks up specific projects that reek of corruption and pursues them doggedly with all the tools at its disposal, including ticking off CII members who are prone to cutting corners, bend the rules or dictate policy by befriending politicians. Will CII have the courage to do that? If it does, it can truly transform India’s image, but we will have to wait and watch.

Projects and contracts that are guaranteed to give India a bad image are never a secret—they are pretty brazen. For instance, the Information Technology (IT) industry is India’s pride and joy, because the top few companies in this sector have set high standards of ethics and governance. But these companies are themselves aware that key e-governance contracts, with long term implications to the integrity of our systems, including licenses, voting cards etc are going to companies with strange antecedents. Hasn’t the industry remained silent about how these are tendered and decided?

The same goes for infrastructure. For several years now, it has been clear that corrupt and venal politicians and bureaucrats are dragging down India’s economic development. In the 1990s, every industry house in India was aware that the government’s policy on Independent Power Projects (IPPs) was simply unworkable. Yet, each one of them quickly set up a power project or spun off captive units into IPPs. Industry associations watched silently, even when the media warned that failed projects and an inability to pay such high cost of power would inhibit the growth of this crucial infrastructure. That scenario has materialised exactly as predicted, but some of those who let it happen are competitively feted as the “original reformers”.

... contd.