'Transparent poll funding will reduce corruption'

Chennai, Jan 31 Drastic pruning of discretionary powers of Ministers and bureaucrats as well as transparent political funding are among the steps that will reduce corruption in governance, said panellists at the K.S. Narayanan Oration 2018 on "Doing business in India today -- Does it call for compromises?"

Uday Kotak, founder CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, said late on Tuesday: "As part of economic liberalisation India should have created strong regulators and taken out the discretionary powers. What is needed is less discretionary power."

According to him, India has a weak institutional framework and is still individual-driven.

"Corruption found a new form post-liberalisation. Businesses that need lots of clearances from the government will breed corruption. Unless there is transparent funding of political parties, there will be corruption," Anu Aga, former Chairperson of Thermax Ltd, said.

She said honest companies can be harassed by politicians and bureaucrats and it is difficult to fight corruption in India by an individual company.

Aga said industry bodies like the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and others can take collective steps to deal with this menace.

Referring to the awards given to corporates by various organisations for top and bottom line performances and not for ethics, Aga wondered as to the kind of role model being set up for the younger generation to emulate.

Recalling a city-based former real estate development company, she said the company as a policy did not pay any bribe to any official.

She said the company's failure over a period of time sent out a wrong message that business cannot be done without corruption.

A top official of a real estate company had told IANS that when attempts were made to help out that firm, the lenders, instead being flexible to help out an honest company, stuck to their stand, resulting in the company going down.