Delhi, seat of the national government, maintained its position as the fountainhead of corruption. This time, north India overtook the south, which stole the limelight for the 2G spectrum allocation scandal in 2011 and 2012 and for installing a high-capacity telephone exchange at a minister’s place to service his private TV channel at government expense. Tamil Nadu under AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa emerged as a much less corrupt state than what it was two years ago.

The report of land scam allegedly involving the Chief Ministers of Haryana and Rajasthan, DLF, the region’s largest real-estate developer, and the Congress president’s son-in-law, was being the most sensational one. Although nothing substantial has materialised yet out of the allegations of the mega land scam, the ways to cover up the controversy in its embryo by the national and the concerned state governments became suspect as the authorities refused to institute any high level independent judicial or CBI investigation to clear the names of the CMs and those high-profile private individuals. Instead, the whistle blower, a senior Haryana cadre IAS officer, was victimized with frequent transfers.

As the year drew to a close and the state election in Rajasthan nearly wiped out Congress to install a BJP government there, the state government, under chief minister Vijayaraje Scindia, threatened to investigate into the land scam involving Robert Vadra, Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law. Delhi reacted fast as CBI announced a preliminary enquiry into the transfer of the management of public sector Hindustan Zinc (HZL) in favour of NRI tycoon Anil Agarwal of London-based Vedanta, which took place under BJP’s Atal Behari Vajpayee regime over a decade ago. Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya was believed to have allegedly facilitated the Vedanta-HZL deal which may have benefited Agarwal around Rs. 25 crore. The alleged land deals in Haryana and Rajasthan, involving Vadra, could be worth well over Rs.800 crore.

Haryana, under the Congress government, has taken a lead over neighbouring Uttar Pradesh in land scam. The state’s high court had recently quashed the acquisition of around 850 acres of land, worth over Rs. 1,000 crore, in Rohtak district, home of its current chief minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The land was acquired by the state government for ‘public purpose’, but subsequently a large portion of it was released to a private developer. Ironically, a former Haryana chief minister and head of Indian National Lok Dal, Om Prakash Chauthala, has been cooling his heels in Delhi’s Tihar Jail on conviction in a much smaller Rs.4-crore school teacher recruitment corruption case. Chauthala is a known political rival of Hooda. The Haryana’s state seed corporation scam, also unearthed this year, itself is of the order of Rs. 5 crore.

Also unfolded during 2013 were corruption cases involving DSC limited operating the Gurgaon toll plaza, one of the country’s busiest toll tax collection centres; financial fraud involving the union labour ministry-controlled Employees Provident Fund Organisation; Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s ‘free ticket’ issue scandal; violation of the PMO ‘code of conduct’ on declaration of wealth by some 35 out of 77 union ministers; Rs. 5,500-crore NSEL fraud; Rs. 17,000 crore scam involving Indian Railways and iron ore exporters; Rajya Sabha seats going for Rs. 100 crore each; massive illegal sand mining in Uttar Pradesh; law minister Kapil Sibal’s role in Vodafone’s Rs. 11,000 crore tax evasion dispute case; bribery in Railway promotion, linking former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal’s nephew; former law minister Aswini Kumar’s interference with Supreme Court-monitored CBI report in multi-billion-dollar private coal block allocation scam; solar panel import scam in Kerala; land acquisition and mining scams in Odisha and Goa; and Rs. 4,000-crore Saradha chit fund fraud in West Bengal. DSC Limited had allegedly understated toll collection of around Rs. 25 crore.

The Forward Markets Commission’s role in the bizarre story of disappearance of Rs. 5,500 crore from the National Spot Exchange (NSEL), promoted by Jignesh Shah’s Financial Technologies, affecting some 15,000 investors, continues to be replete with mystery. When NSEL had to ultimately shut down its operation, following an innocuous looking notification from the Commission, it had neither the money nor the underlying ‘spot’ goods to settle the traders’ claims. As if the entire wealth with NSEL suddenly disappeared into the thin air. This was the country’s biggest payment default case involving an exchange, dwarfing the 13-year-old similar Calcutta stock Exchange crisis concerning settlements worth Rs. 600 crore.

The government failed to act, or chose not to act in time. Governance was sacrificed at the altar of corruption. Business opportunism and corporate rivalry fueled the government’s bold and buoyant corruption machinery as projects after projects were stalled with various wings of the government playing in the hands of one party or the other and, ultimately, forcing the economy and society share the costs of corruption and absence of governance. Regulators and law enforcement agencies joined hands with the corrupt under the patronage of their political masters.

The net effect of the growing corruption and economic mismanagement took a heavy toll on the country’s economy. By the end of September, the real GDP grew by only about 4.7 per cent. Massive delays in project clearance due to political feud and corruption slowed down the entire economy – from infrastructure, core sector and manufacturing to banking and trading. Corporate activity was depressed. India Inc’s M&A activity in the first 10 months of this year remained muted, with just 411 deals amounting to $25.48 billion, registering a decline of 17 per cent from the same period a year ago. On the contrary, the global corporate acquisition and merger activity in the first 10 months of 2013 grew by as much as13 per cent.

Hoarders, black-marketers and hawala operators had a field day. Prices of essential items sky-rocketed. The common man was the worst hit. Rupee lost its exchange value vis-à-vis US Dollar, Euro and Japanese Yen by almost 35 per cent, making it the biggest devaluation of Rupee in a single year. The rich continued to convert their surplus Rupee stocks into gold while banks were stuck with the biggest ever pile of sticky assets and write-offs by the end of 2013. Banks ‘lost’ over 70,000 crore in ‘bad loans’ during the year. Some economists called the state of economy a ‘stagflation’, radicals among them described the situation as a deliberate walk to the path of destruction.

All eyes are set at the 2014 Parliamentary election and its result. Only an efficient, honest, transparent and well-meaning government, determined to fight corruption, communal divide and social injustice, can alter the situation. The task to fight corruption, which is ingrained in the system, is by no means easy. Yet, until it is achieved, the economy and the general public will continue to suffer. Good governance holds the key to lasting growth in any economy.(IPA Service)