Mobile, Governance and Corruption

As per the Corruption Perception Index of the Transparency international India ranks 85Th below Swaziland and Serbia. The late Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi once famously said that out of every single rupee paid by the Indian Government for poverty eradication and rural development only ten paise reaches the actual beneficiary. Corruption as all of us know has been the biggest bain of otherwise tolerable Indian Democracy. Now with all these younger tech savvy politicians around and with a tremendous growth in mobile penetration which by latest accounts from TRAI crossing 300 million it is high time government needs to consider mobile as an effective medium for governance. For example once an application or petition has been submitted to the government government can inform the status of the same to the applicant via sms alerts. The various benefits which are provided by government such as subsidies, pensions etc.. can be notified to the beneficiaries via SMS from the point of release of funds. A local governing authority can publish the budget and other fund allocations for a particular area to the residents of that area as and when the budget is passed or funds are allocates. This constant tracking and information dissemination to the lowest level can go a long way in preventing corruption in Government.