Indian transparency
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That is quite an achievement! But there are great speeches in English in foreign locations mostly, about transparency in government.
Transparency in government and especially in matters of finance is important to prevent corruption and misgovernance.
Neta's and babu's ensconced in their cocoons of self righteousness and power, tend to become corrupt the longer they stay in power.
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India's budget transparency score worse than Bangladesh's
By Times of India
An
international report on budget transparency places India at a middling
level globally and next only to Bangladesh in South Asia. The report,
which looks at 2013-14, the last year of the UPA, gave India a score of
46 on 100, just slightly better than the average of 45 for all the
countries surveyed.
The report, Open Budget Survey 2015,
brought out by the International Budget Partnership, evaluates countries
on the transparency of their budgeting process on several counts under
three major heads - public participation, oversight by the legislature
and oversight by audit. India scores an impressive 75 on 100 in
oversight by audit, but performs poorly on the other two counts. In
particular, on public participation, India's score was a mere 19 on 100.
On top of the list was New Zealand with a score of 88. Sweden,
South Africa, Norway and the United States all scored in the eighties.
Among the BRICS nations, apart from South Africa, Brazil with 77 and
Russia with 73 had scores well above India's, but China with a score of
just 14 was judged to have among the least transparent budget processes.
India's score is a significant dip from the 62 it scored in an
earlier round of the same survey in 2012. However, the sharp drop is
largely on account of temporary factors like the mid-year review and the
year-end report not being presented in time.
These delays
could be attributed to changes in personnel (like Raghuram Rajan moving
from the chief economic advisor's job to head the RBI and his
replacement taking time), which is why they are seen as a temporary
regression. The report does make the point, though, that while the
regressions may be temporary and the rebound from them quick, they
highlight what can happen "when the mechanics of publishing documents on
time are not sufficiently institutionalized".
Had India retained its score of 62 it would have been among the better countries globally and comfortably led in South Asia.
The research for the survey was done by 102 research and civil society
organizations working around the world. The organization doing the
research for India was the Centre for Budget and Governance
Accountability (CBGA), an NGO advocating greater transparency and
accountability in budget making in India.