All politicians in the India have shown a lot of concern on the black money stashed in foreign banks but very conveniently forget the amount of black money available in the country through corruption and graft alone. If only we take into account the executives and functionaries of Indian central and state governments we can realise how big the corruption demon is and what could be achieved for the prosperity of the country and its hapless poor millions if only we manage to recover a major proportion of it. The recent cases of an engineer, a clerk and a peon who have amassed tens of crores of rupees through misuse and abuse of their positions in the government are real eye openers in this regard. These cases are certainly not the isolated cases of corruption but lead to the logical conclusion of organised and systematised corruption at all levels of government. If these insignificant government officials can amass crores and crores of rupees, imagine the extent of money gobbled by the higher ups in bureaucracy and polity.
In India there are about 10 million government servants. If one assumes that only 50% of them have the opportunity to amass wealth through corruption because of their involvement with high value programmes and public services and out of these 5 million only 10% indulge in such loot which is far from truth. In fact very few Indians will agree to such a small percentage of corrupt officials. With a measly sum of rupees 1 crore as the average figure of disproportionate asset and wealth available with these employees we get a staggering amount of Rs 5 Lakh crores. This amount is extremely conservative by all yardsticks and is still equal to half the annual budget of India, more than covers the fiscal deficit estimate (5% of GDP), can help in doubling the annual outlays of infrastructure sector and social programmes of the union government.One sincere and honest step of the government can catapult the march of the Indian nation towards being a prosperous country for one and all. If government takes on itself the mitigation of corruption and black money demon in the next year or so, it need not resort to populist hollow vote catching slogans and actions to the detriment of the country. The masses will give them the next government on a platter. Let them have a positive approach rather than the present negative and easy approach to fool the people to remain in power.
