
Phony currency used to fight bribes in India - robg
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/04/bribe_fighter/?page=full
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ShabbyDoo
A reduction in the bribe amount bureaucrats are willing to pay for the right
to receive bribes themselves would be a great indicator of success.

As an aside, I'm an American who worked last week in the US with a guy from my
company's Indian office. Because India apparently has high import duties on
watches, he decided this trip would be a good opportunity to purchase a watch
for his wife. When he asked me where to to to buy a Swiss Army watch, I
suggested Amazon.com. I'm a Prime member and offered to use my account so he
could get free 2nd day shipping. I ordered the watch while he observed.
"That's all you had to do?" I hadn't even used 1-click! When it shipped, I
emailed him the tracking number. Over the next couple of days, he checked
UPS.com in semi-disbelief and seemed amazed when the watch showed up as
expected.

Apparently, according to my co-worker, there's little online purchasing of
physical goods in India. While credit cards are becoming increasingly common,
delivery systems are seen as too corrupt to be trusted. "You'll order a watch,
but only an empty box will be delivered." It probably also doesn't help that a
product purchased by a middle-class Indian might be worth months of lower-
class wages.

It's the hidden, non-physical infrastructure that's so important. Layers and
layers of laws, enforcement, responsible government, etc. are required to
produce a system where an expensive item can be delivered to my house
reliably.

~~~
ahk
Sorry, that's just wrong. Delivery systems in India are pretty good in most
cities and online stores are a dime a dozen (nothing as dominant as Amazon
however). There are even sites which deliver direct from the US (pretty much
everything available there). Online payment systems are actually more advanced
than in the US.

The real reason is due to a penny-pincher mentality. Even young highly
educated people with well paying jobs tend to forego internet connectivity at
home and scrounge about in internet cafés or libraries. The value and
productivity gains of access is completely discounted. Laptops are still
considered luxury items for the elite. Folks here consider actually paying for
shipping to be stupid and will spend entire an afternoon walking about in the
sun shopping for second-hand books at road-side stalls etc in lieu of forking
out hard earned cash just for convenience.

~~~
ShabbyDoo
Interesting. The guy I work with lives/works in Pune but seemed quite familiar
with Mumbai.

Do you order stuff online? If so, does it arrive as expected? What are
shipping charges like for, say, a 5000 rupee (~ $100?) item weighing 1 kg? Is
insurance included? I specified that price point because I think it's the
maximum insurance payout included in UPS's basic pricing in the US. Just
curious.

~~~
ahk
Yes, quite a few items this past year or so. No issues with any so far. Most
items have been books, ps3 games or supplements in the 500 to 3k range, so
nothing past 5k yet. Not too sure about insurance, but companies like
DHL/BlueDart should have something I guess.

Shipping charges have ranged from free to Rs 50/ Rs 100 (for local items) to
Rs 500/ Rs 750 (for US shipments). Shipment times range from a couple of days
to about a month depending on if you're paying anything for it.

~~~
ShabbyDoo
These prices certainly support your argument. Are online goods priced at least
as competitively as in physical stores?

------
lionhearted
Edit: I'm asking a serious question here - the article itself mentions that
the poorest people aren't able to get access to birth certificates or get
their home connected to municipal water unless they pay bribes they can't
afford. This seems pretty brazenly criminal to me. And the death penalty is
legal. So...

Maybe a naive question - how hard would be to just have the government
announce they're going to hang anyone who asks for a bribe, then make a big
show about hanging 100 corrupt bureaucrats? Wouldn't that drastically cut
corruption down?

~~~
tokenadult
_how hard would be to just have the government announce they're going to hang
anyone who asks for a bribe, then make a big show about hanging 100 corrupt
bureaucrats? Wouldn't that drastically cut corruption down?_

Thanks for asking a specific factual question. The policy you mention has not
worked in China, where it is widely seen as a way to kill off lower-level
officials who are insufficiently cooperative with the highest-level officials.
China regularly has publicly announced executions for corruption, but it still
has pervasive corruption.

------
tokenadult
Discussed previously on HN:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077548>

Again, I'm finding that SearchYC recently is better at finding articles on the
same subject (this earlier one from a different source) than a site-restricted
Google search is.

------
yason
There are both low-level and high-level corruption. Low-level corruption is
the naive version that is handing over actual notes to officials to have small
things get through the system. High-level corruption is a lot more subtle and
transparent than asking for tea money, circling around anywhere where any
people have some political power. The high-level kind of corruption is firmly
rooted in western countries as well.

It might actually be easier to fight the low-level corruption because the tea
money is clearly and undeniably out there, and such blatant bribery is easy to
judge. On the other hand the high-level corruption isn't supposed to even
exist. The status quo will tell us that there's very limited corruption in
many western countries. Further, no physical notes ever change owners but
instead agreements, benefits, rewards, slices of power, changes of opinion,
and political agendas get from one side to the other.

And all that can be put under the cover of public relations as usual. It's
just public relations between those who have money and an agenda and those who
have political or journalistic or whatever power. Seemingly everything is
immaculate. In reality, it's as dirty as it can be.

------
chaosprophet
The best part about this is that you don't have to go find someone to get
these notes. If you have a printer, you can just print them out yourself, how
many ever you may want. I'm a bit sceptical of all the success stories though.
I'm going to try this with the local traffic policeman the next time he pulls
me up, and check his reaction.

~~~
dustingetz
you mean, you're going to try the bribe notes in india?

~~~
chaosprophet
Yeah. Probably the most frequently bribed people in India would be traffic
cops on the beat. They confiscate your keys and won't hand them back until you
pay them.

------
by
It makes me think of the Salt March

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Satyagraha>

where many small acts of non-violent protest brought about great change.

------
kingsley_20
Printing Ghandi's mug on every single bill hasn't worked to shame anybody yet,
so I'm very surprised that this works. Happy that it seems to though.

~~~
DennisP
It might be more fear than shame...the note is a signal that the person is
resolute, prepared, and part of a larger movement.

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samratjp
Ingenious. Where can I get them for my next trip?

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motters
It's not only in India where bribery of government officials and bureaucrats
is commonplace, so this idea might spread elsewhere.

------
rao
I like the way author addresses "non governmental organization" (NGO) as
"good-government organization"

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cianestro
It's always nice to see technocracy is alive and well.

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dnsworks
India is so cute sometimes I want to pinch it's cheeks.

