doshiamit.net

In a cleverly titled but unbelievably dumb opinion piece a Mr. Devinder Sharma, has penned possibly the stupidest Op-Ed I have ever read by someone not named Shobha De.

His basic idea is that Computerization does not help fight corruption because Satyam and Price Waterhouse and all the financial behemoths who failed use computers. Of course he mixes up the fact that these are all private company and e governance is supposed to help the government reduce corruption, but lets not pick this nitwits brains apart.

Apparently he has been a lone bastion of sanity:

I had always challenged the popular contention. The New Age management gurus, whose jobs are linked to promoting the use and application of technology, would only snigger.

And in frustration he asks:

E-governance is the buzzword and how can someone dare to question the perceived role computers can play in fighting corruption.

Allow me to answer(and snigger).

1. Organised and Accessible Data

One of the basic functions of a computer is the ability to easily and almost instantaneously file, store, and retrieve data. Government Data in particular has always been hard to get access too. Even considering the current RTI Act, many requests are unfulfilled or delayed because the data is simply not available in a timely manner.  Fear that a ridiculous circular issued or order passed by a government functionary might come back to haunt them will reduce corruption.

2. Data Mining for aberrant Patterns

Though not much of this is being done today, the possibilities for the future are very interesting. Imagine a case where 10% of Sales Tax officers are allowing a few companies to underreport its sales. Over a period of time patterns are will emerge to indicate which companies and which officers are involved. If a particular company is underperforming its competitors, or if a particular officers interaction with a particular company is consistently leading to revenues not in line with other interactions that the department is seeing, a flag goes up. Its the law of large numbers.

3. Speeding up processes

I am a US citizen living in India so I visit the FRRO on a regular basis. It has been my experience over the last 25 years that most of the officers here are honest. But up until 3 years ago, going to this office was a nightmare. In 2004 or 2005 they reengineered the way things were done at the office, one big difference being having the Registrants print and fill out their forms prior to meeting the officers. Since this has been done no one there feels the need to bribe anyone. A big reason for bribery is to get your work done fast. Computerization helps in speeding things up.

4. Remove the Rent Seeking

Rent Seeking refers to the practice of allowing a particular government employee to manipulate the process of getting something done in a way that he can extract money from you. This is the typical chai-paani situation. The electric guy or telephone guy asking for something to put in the connection, or the PA who controls access to an officer, or the Octroi inspector who controls how long it takes for your goods to get through the ckeck naka. They have placed themselves as toll takers. Combined with process reengineernig computerization can dramatically reduce these bottlenecks. An example of how this can be help would be the current traffic violation system in Mumbai. Today when someone is caught for a violation she has to handover her license to the traffic cop who catches her, than go collect the license from a police station 24 hours later when she pays the fine. It was a system devised to prevent corruption as this way the cop on the street never handles money. What it has led to is a wholesale breakdown of the traffic norms in the city. No one wants to go to the cop station next day. The common refrain is “Cant we settle this here?” Instead a computerised ticketing system combined with a mail-in fine, would be far more efficient for everyone involved. Cops spend less time on resolving each violation, motorists get to go on their way with minimal disruption.

What computerization will not solve is fraud. If someone who you believe is dealing with you in good faith lies, the only way that one can catch that is by verifying everything. That is neither practical or desirable. So the Satyam scam which Mr. Sharma gleefully points at as proving the ineffectiveness of computers, could never have been stopped. The problem for people like this is they think there is a magic bullet for every problem. Computerization is a big part of trying to right the ship, but its not a magic bullet. It is a tool. And tools are used by people. You try and create tools so that they are used for their accomplished purpose, but if someone uses a screwdriver to stab someone in the brain, is that the fault of the tool or the person using it?