Over the last two years, the corruption pervading India's Government has received remarkable media attention, thanks, in part, to scandals surrounding the Commonwealth Games, 2G telecom licences, and Adarsh housing society.

Yet, the attention to high-level scandals has overshadowed the corruption in basic public services faced by citizens on a daily basis. Individuals who hope to receive a ration card, a driver's licence, or a modification to their land record are often faced with long delays that can only be shortened with “extra” payments, the “speed money” that greases the wheels of government and lines the pockets of bureaucrats and their political superiors.

Not only is this pernicious everyday corruption a drain on the limited resources of India's average citizen, it can impede efforts to improve the quality of public services in general. There is perhaps no better example of this than the efforts over the past decade to use information technology to reform the Indian Government.

Starting in 1999, State Governments began to introduce a comprehensive model of IT-enabled service delivery in the form of one-stop computerised service centres.

In theory, these centres would allow individuals to acquire services traditionally housed across government departments, from income and birth certificates to passports and building permits.

This model, first appearing at the state level in Andhra Pradesh's eSeva centres — initially called “TWINS” after the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad where the initiative was launched — promised to improve citizens' service delivery experience by simplifying applications, reducing officials' discretion, and minimising the time to receive services. If implemented well, these centres could dramatically improve the quality of services received by citizens throughout the country.

Vested interests

In an analysis of service-centre programmes launched in 16 of India's 20 major States, I evaluated the details of these policies and the quality of implementation.

While the wave of reform in service delivery is striking in terms of the speed and breadth of initiatives across the country, I found evidence of mixed and limited benefits to citizens. Despite the Central Government's enthusiasm to open 100,000 Common Service Centres as a part of the 2006 National eGovernment Plan (NeGP), the experience of State Programmes in the period prior to the NeGP provides a cautionary tale.

My analysis shows that the quality and comprehensiveness of state service centre programmes has varied dramatically. The number of government services made available to citizens ranged from fewer than 10 in Delhi and Odisha to more than 30 in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh by the late 2000s.

The services made available were often the easiest to acquire, and least corrupt, in the pre-existing, non-computerised system, or were targeted to a specific group, thereby excluding large segments of citizens.

Computerisation often did not extend beyond basic data entry, as in Haryana, thereby limiting overall efficiency gains. In some cases, such as Uttarakhand and West Bengal, programmes barely got off the ground or became entangled in legal disputes between operators and the state, resulting in the closure of most, if not all, centres.

What explains this diverse set of outcomes across the States?

I posit that the promise of these initiatives was also often their downfall: the expectation of improved, and less corrupt, services posed a threat to government actors who depend on bribes acquired during service delivery.

Bureaucrats who collect “speed money” or other types of bribes from citizens, and politicians who demand a cut of these proceeds are both at risk of losing access to this source of income with the introduction of computerised, one-stop service delivery.

Where politicians depend on this “petty” or “retail” corruption for supporting their re-election campaigns, the expectation that more transparent service delivery could limit future inflows of cash can imply constraints on incumbents' ability to retain their seats.

In contrast, politicians in regions with lower pre-existing levels of petty corruption should anticipate that reforms will only minimally affect their access to income.

Thus, incumbents in areas with high petty corruption are less likely to support this type of reform.

Mixed outcomes

While all States display some petty corruption, levels of corruption differ quite dramatically. A 2005 survey conducted by Transparency International India and the Centre for Media Studies found substantial variation in petty corruption across the States: bureaucrats typically demanded bribes from fewer than 20 per cent of citizens in States such as Kerala and Gujarat, versus more than 50 per cent of individuals in Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan.

As a result, if the level of petty corruption is linked to choices about computerisation of public services, this may help to explain the variation in these policies in the States.

Those States with high levels of petty corruption were less likely to introduce computerised centres, implemented fewer and less bribe-prone services within the centres, and were less likely to fully computerise the service-delivery process.

Perhaps most striking was that the level of petty corruption was the best predictor of state policy; outcomes were largely unrelated to the wealth or development of a state, with poorer and less developed states with lower levels of corruption implementing some of the most impressive improvements to the quality of public services through these centres.

In addition, I found that in States ruled by coalition governments, such as Kerala, departments under the control of powerful coalition partners were less likely to have services under their purview included in computerised service centres.

This article is by special arrangement with the Centre for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania

(The author is an Assistant Professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin.)

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