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The FIFO concept to reduce corruption

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Written By silkboard - 10 November, 2010

egovernance governance Corruption Transparency Analysis technology Karnataka Right to Services

Its probably time for some Praja-style talk on the subject of corruption. What would be some quick win and practical measures to start dealing with this "elephant in the room" we have accepted to live with?

Dealing with government usually involves creating a request, and then getting it to work through a queue managed by some department. Corruption is mostly a result of our own eagerness to get our requests processed faster. You want your request (or "file", to use the classic term) to move fast, or fast-er, so you do things to get our "request" to jump the queue.

What if the concept of FIFO (short for First In First Out), was applied to all these queues? Further, what if the queues are always visible and transparent to citizens?

In theory, all queues inside the government systems are FIFO (constitution says all citizens are to be treated the same). But since the queues are not "published" (aka visible) to citizens, we get "played" with each other, and end up being criminals by paying bribes to get our files to move faster. And, since most of us pay bribes, no one really gains much, as the files would move at same relative speeds (as we mostly pay similar amounts of bribes).

So, to sum it up, what should we be asking for?

  1. Implementation of FIFO in all the processes inside government that deal directly with citizen requests
  2. The FIFO must be visible to citizens, clearly showing all active requests sorted by time
  3. And last, govt officer(s) working on the queue must work only on the top (or the first) file in the FIFO.

Technically, its a fairly simple thing to ask for. Implementing simple FIFOs won't take huge projects or time. Making FIFOs visible to citizens is where govt dept's attitude to transparency will come in. The need is for both, FIFO and transparency - if any file jumps the queue, every other person with a file sitting in the same queue should be able to spot the "jump" and raise objection.

Its not a path-breaking or new thing. Many babus understand this common sense concept. Uttar Pradesh Transport department has in fact even tried to implement it. Now, let us picture this working for an example, say: Khata applications.

  1. You apply for Khata
  2. Your application gets listed on BBMP website, showing your position in the queue
  3. The same list shows all other applications ahead and behind you (not all details, just enough to identify the application)
  4. BBMP officer must dispose of a file before picking up next one. Basically, can't put something on hold, and come back. File must be processed or handed back to the applicant with clear status and reason.

So, what happens in above case?

  1. By way of transparency, BBMP officer is made to work only on the first file in the queue. (in practice, a bunch of people may take top few, say 10-15 files, assume 1 file 1 person for simplification)
  2. As he/she clears file, your file moves up, and you see it all as it happens.
  3. You get to see the speed of the department, and also the size of the queue to get an idea of how they work, and their workload
  4. The focus shifts from bribing etc to making an objective criticism of the speed and efficiency of BBMP in handling this FIFO

To sum it up, transparency is what can kill corruption, both on the giver and taker side. FIFO is a tangible and useful implementation of often ignored "proactive declaration" clause of RTI Act.

COMMENTS

not bad..but far from perfect.

badhrij - 10 November, 2010 - 10:47

 It is a good idea, but still doesn't seem to eliminate corruption. For example,

1. What if you have never skipped the line and when the officer says, pay me 10% of the property value or else, I will mark your status as "document insufficient"? 

2.In many of the govt. depts (ex: RTO and sub-registrar for marriage registration) you won't even be able to find the queue without the help of an agent.

3. Even assuming that BBMP website is updated so perfectly well, and the website is watched grievance redressal when the queue is jumped is again at the hands of the govt. I have seen a few govt. depts that carries out its jobs reasonably well (post office, PDS in TN), but I haven't seen a single one that does grievance redressal well at all!.

3. Even if we assume that this proposal does eliminate corruption, it only does so when citizens to the govt. There are areas where govt. comes to citizens (traffic police, income tax, address verification )

@badhrij, your answers

silkboard - 10 November, 2010 - 11:20

First of all, this is not a cure-all for corruption, its a big complicated beast. The things is to brainstorm doable things that can help reduce corruption, things that we can actually demand/ask for. To answer your specific questions:

What if you have never skipped the line and when the officer says, pay me 10% of the property value or else, I will mark your status as "document insufficient"?

As long as the "document insufficient" marking is there with details of what documents are missing, and such marking (aka "file notings") is also visible, you are good. Further, you can look at documents that accompanied any other file that got cleared, and say that since that was cleared, you need to clear this as well. But yeah, point taken that there may be subjectivity in "disposing" a file, this has to be defined tightly - one must not be able to "hold up" a file. But since preventing clerks/officers from "holding thins up" is tough to enforce, transparency + FIFO is a practical approach.

In many of the govt. depts (ex: RTO and sub-registrar for marriage registration) you won't even be able to find the queue without the help of an agent.

Now, thats the whole point isn't it?. We should simply demand that there be queues, they be visible to citizens, and they be updated regularly. Simple.

Will leave the you other two points for now, but hope I clarified things a bit.

The thing is this. fight against corruption tends to be around people or specific incidents, and then it gets political, and gets lost. Asking for measures like this (transparent FIFOs) are relatively safer, as you would not be targeting any individual or incidents. Its sort of like taking RTI to the next step, to force some proactive transparency from govt depts.

Reduce corruption by reducing cash

ashok_n - 10 November, 2010 - 12:40

Can we reduce (maybe not eliminate totally) corruption by reducing the amount of free cash in the system? I am assuming, of course, that most of the corruption happens through cash.

So how to reduce cash in the system? Suggested steps:

1. 2-year plan ( in parallel with UID) to have every Indian citizen have a bank account. A small reward to get yourself UID'ed and a bank account ; First time bank account can directly be credited, say Rs 500/-.

2. Any cash transactions with the bank ( deposits, withdrawals) to be charged, atleast 2%.

3. Enable card payments for all services. This is technologically possible now with mobile payment machines. Every auto driver, milkman, petrol bunk etc should accept only cards.

4. Incentivise card payments by having lower rates than Cash payments for all services ( currently, this is the opposite in India... sometimes you have to pay more by card than cash). Every shop, hotel etc should straight increase the total bill by 5%, if payment is through cash. No discounts applicable for Cash payments.

Make cash unworthy. Make people who deal in cash look guilty in front of their family or friends.

Of course, this will not affect very big scams like Adarsh or 2G or when money is stashed in foreign banks but will reduce local corruption of the RTO, BBMP office type.

Workable?

they wont let this happen..

srinidhi - 10 November, 2010 - 12:52

 SB, this is a nice concept but the govt/authorities will not get anything like this working!

you are very cosiderate in calling corruption a elephant..its more a virus at all levels..to the extent even lokayukta is left toothless cos of it..

The clerk and other officials who are in the poistions at the tashildars office and other govt offices have come to their posts after heafty bargaining with none less than the ministers all the way to their immediate officers..so the system is so entangled that they will go great extents to safeguard their interests..

So guess it should come from the population conscience..probably from good education!

Like Praveen Sood says in today TOI about traffic violations..

"Do we see a traffic cop at any junction in New York or Singapore? Who regulates them? Police? No. People regulate themselves with the help of road markings, signals and signage.... There has to be a miniature policeman in the minds of all of us just like there is a violator in the hearts of each of us."

FIFO is the first step if not

idontspam - 16 November, 2010 - 06:23

FIFO is the first step if not the only. How do we go forward in getting FIFO rolled out?

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