Corruption corrodes the prospects for India's development

New Delhi, 2 March 2009. - With its powerful bureaucracy, untouchable political class and the ubiquitous middlemen, India faces poorly armed to massive corruption, which remains to GDP, according to estimates by economists, annual growth 1.5 percentage points .
Although there is no complete picture of corruption in India, there is evidence to suggest widespread fraud in some of the public financing schemes: at least 70 percent of rural funding does not reach its destination, according to experts quoted in "Hour of the economic reforms" Gilbert Etienne.
"We have identified three types of corruption: the corporate sector, and political corruption that affects the common man, from day to day," he said in an interview with Efe vice president of Transparency International India (TII), SK Agarwal .
Her organization launched in 2008 a report on the perception the poorest families on corruption, with devastating results for institutions like the police, political parties or agencies responsible for food distribution.
More than 40 of respondents from families living below the poverty line, said he paid bribes or used their contacts in relations with the police and housing and property services.
The total illegal amounts contributed by the poor to obtain basic services such as IIT, amounted last year to $ 180 million, a significant amount if you consider living with just 12 rupees (0.23 dollars, current exchange rates) per person per day.
"There is no political interest in rooting out corruption, lamented Agarwal. Bureaucrats and politicians are responsible and benefit fraud, for example to finance election campaigns. So they who will not change things. "
In recent years, have been notorious in India several cases of murder or degradation of labor "whistle-blowers" (informers), as known to those who report cases of fraud and corruption within their institution.
One is the official MN Vijayakumar, who fight against corruption in public institutions in the region of Karnataka (southwest) and is being subjected to relentless harassment, told Efe by telephone his wife, Jayashree.
"He's fighting alone. Has been shifted eight times and suffered three assassination attempts. No one investigates. Corruption is massive, occurs openly, "denounced Bangalore housewife who created a website to report fraud and has come to seek the suspension of her husband" to protect ".
According to Jayashree, police in the region need to pay amounts up to $ 30,500 for promotion, which leads them into debt and then take bribes and practice extortion to pay that debt.
In Karnataka, one of the most corrupt in India, has come to move a form with "rates" for the cremation of the dead: two dollars out of the van, three body wash, $ 20 for burial.
According to economist Sanjay Sanyal, for every 100 dollars spent to build roads in the regional capital, Bangalore, only 40 are employed in it: $ 20 is the builder's profit margin and the other 40 going into the pockets of politicians.
"The tentacles of corruption affecting the corporate world, small and large companies. Except perhaps the Tata family, the great names of Indian companies, Did they reach the top without blemish? "He questioned Agarwal.
According to Transparency International, Indian companies are among those that pay more bribes when doing business in the world, behind Russia, China or Mexico and ahead of Brazil.
India suffers unpaid phone bills, theft of coal mines and electrical connection, a multimillion dollar tax evasion, embezzlement bad bank loans and public funds often go unpunished by the slow pace of justice.
According to Agarwal, a long-term solution will come from e-government: if people can solve network problems, he said, will reduce its dependence on middlemen.
And the search for settlement in India proliferate original but insufficient private initiatives against corruption, like a partnership that created zero rupee notes to pay them to corrupt traffic wardens.

The India will grow by 7.7 percent under deceleration, says report

New Delhi, 13 August 2008. - The Indian government today took the impact of global crisis on its economy by announcing a reduction of one point in GDP growth this year, which particularly hit the agricultural sector, which home to 60 percent of its population.
According to the report of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) of the Government presented today to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India's economy will grow by 7.7 percent compared to 8.7 announced by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, when he presented the budget in February and 9 percent last fiscal year.
The economic reality of the country has moved away in recent months of that goal, with a slowdown in economic activity in most sectors, a runaway inflation and agricultural performance concern.
According to the EAC report, agriculture will grow by only 2 percent, by weak monsoon rains of the wet season and the high base level of last year.
Farming for Life for most of India's population grew by 4.5 percent in fiscal year 2007-08, 3.8 in the previous and 5.9 in 2005-2006.
"A 2 percent means that the agricultural tragedy worse," responded the activist Vandana Shiva, president of the organization proagricultores Navdania, in conversation with Efe.
"For an acceptable agricultural development, we need a minimum growth of 4 percent," he explained.
Indian agriculture has grown in recent years, well below the other economic sectors, which has increased the gap between urban and rural society.
Although the EAC welcomed the increase in grain production, noted the decline in arable areas, the decline in investment in infrastructure, trade deterioration and lack of technological innovation in the sector.
"The Indian government does not invest enough and it leaves farmers helpless in the hands of multinationals, which imposes harmful seeds and crop varieties like Bt cotton, which left them in debt with no way out," complained Shiva.
The stagnation of agriculture has a direct impact on hundreds of millions of peasants, who have also suffered in recent months, a clear deterioration in purchasing power due to inflationary pressure.
India inflation hovers above 12 percent, which in the opinion of EAC is due to higher international prices and falling domestic supply, with substantial increases in oil, food and consumer goods.
At a news conference gathered by Indian agencies, the outgoing president of the EAC, C. Rangarajan, warned that inflation may rise further to 13 percent, when the Central Bank's target was 5.5 for this year.
In its report, the EAC considered that inflation may fall to values ​​of 8-9 percent in March 2009 if the right policies.
The weak economic data also extend the industrial sector, which the advisory body will grow by 7.5 percent, one point below the growth recorded the previous year due to falls in consumption and external demand.
"The situation is clearly negative, we have a slowdown due to the overall context. But we can not ascribe the blame for everything that happens to the Government. The responsibility is collective, "the spokesman told Efe of the Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, Koteshwar Dobhal.
And there are good data in the service sector to grow by 9.6 percent, the lowest rate in the last four years and 1.2 points lower than that recorded in 2007-08.
This economic data complicate the last months in office of Singh, who faces the electorate in the spring of 2009.
Your government will respond to signs of economic deterioration and help put the economy "on track" to what it will take "a tight monetary policy," said Rangarajan.

The new India facing their particular housing bubble

New Delhi, October 22, 2006. - The huge Indian GDP growth has been accompanied by increases of 100 percent annually in the price of housing in some areas of the capital, New Delhi, where golf courses are raised with the slums .
Simply browse just housing supplements of major newspapers to realize that India is experiencing a real estate fever particularly in the case of the capital of the apartments has a good reach for most in a country whose GDP, more to grow, gallops to 10 percent.
An example of escalating prices is the central artery Panchseel Urban Road, where rents were in the first half of this year 110 percent higher than in 2005.
These days, the local newspaper "The Times of India" said wryly that to own a house in the downtown streets, valued at some 23 million euros, have to be a minister, an issue which would not comment Efe responsible Development of Delhi, DD Neemodhar.
And indeed, one of the finest neighborhoods to live, Aurangzeb Road, is packed with great dignitaries who paid a rental income of 8,000 euros per month in a country where tea costs ten cents.
According to the promoter told Efe Yograj Agrawal, urban pressures of the capital comes from its "shortage of land" which has caused many investors have turned their interests to the "emerging markets of the towns adjacent to New Delhi".
The same consultant confirms M. Arvind, who told Efe that the high population density in Delhi has caused many residential areas are transformed into commercial, so there is no soil to live.
"Every three months the prices increase substantially and demand will continue to grow, especially since half of the customers just want high housing property as an investment for the future," said Arvind.
According to the consultant, who refused to call it speculation, it is a very wise investment as the economy continues to grow so fast, especially because, he said, "investing in housing is now 60 percent more profitable than anything else."
So, as happens in large European cities, many natives of Delhi have been forced to live in nearby towns and go to work every day to the capital.
But these new cities, far from being mere dormitories, are the best example of the strength India: Gurgaon, for example, only during the past year have been leased 450,000 square meters of land for business use, at prices 44 percent expensive than the previous year.
That's easy to see lines of business and shopping centers as a symptom of what in India is known as the "second revolution", an opening to capitalism since 1993, has generated "reverse ghettos" of residential neighborhoods isolated from the poverty.
In town, near New Delhi, will rise 20 luxury hotels with 10,000 rooms by 2010, coinciding with the celebration in India of the Commonwealth Games.
Many young couples look to that time as fetish year, according to Arvind Agarwal and mark the end of the "boom" of the house.
But until then, many fear that prices of new houses in Gurgaon, this urban fervor reflected in its luxury shopping centers, golf courses and an emerging middle class, continue to grow at the rate of 180 percent this year.
And then, as Arvind said, "when Gurgaon has unaffordable prices, there will a lot of ground in the rest of India to build houses."