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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India, the ancient seat of learning, the breeding-ground of people with morals as lofty as the sky itself, the nation which was once a proud claimant vis-a-vis truth and follower of the paths of sages like Mahavira and Gautam Buddha, has perhaps forgotten its ethical roots. Now, all our country is left with is a bagful of scams.
We have a total of twenty-five major and minor scams that saw daylight. There might be some other as well, which we never came face to face with. We have the following list, naming a few major ones, perhaps the biggest scams in the world as well: Jeep, Serajuddin, Mundhra, Kairon, Bofors, Securities, Hawala, Telecom, Big Bull's Stock Scam, Fodder, Jayalalitha, Urea, ISRO, Tehelka. We will discuss

According to one estimate, if this money is spent on infrastructure, then Indian infrastructure will be equivalent to the one in developed countries. Your efforts will be appreciated to make public aware of effects of such scams on their life.....

No. Project Name Amount (in Rs)
1 Share scam 1000 crores
2 Sugar scam 650 crores
3 Bofors scam 65 crores
4 Hawala case 65 crores
5 Housing scam 18 crores
6 M.P. trading 32 crores
7 Fertilizer scam 133 crores
8 Medicine Equipment scam 5000 crores
9 Telecom case 1200 crores
10 Newsprint case 20 crores
11 Indian bank scam 1336 crores
12 Fodder scam (Bihar) 1000 crores
13 Land scam (Bihar) 400 crores
14 Bitumen scam (Bihar) 100 crores
15 Medicine scam (Bihar) 100 crores
16 Forest case (Meghalaya) 300 crores
17 Ayurveda scam (UP) 32 crores
18 Dhoti-Saree scam (Tamil) 11 crores
19 Coal scam (Tamilnadu) 750 crores
20 Forest reserve scam (Meghalaya) 75 crores
21 Wakof Scam (West Bengal) 1600 crores
22 Dental College Case (Karnataka) 50  lakhs
Total of Rs. 13,93,70,00,00,000/- Can you read out this figure?. I CANNOT! Its even than India's Annual Budget. 




This  is  just the tip of the iceberg of an immense range of possibilities, which  you  can  take advantage of. For example, there have been scams like Treasury  scams,  Panchayat  Scam,  Fishery Scam, Cooperative scam, Dairy scam,Food Ministry scam, Lottery scam, and hospital scams. Now see how many jewels this system has produced:
 

No.   Name of person      Amount (in Rs)
1 Motilal Vohra 11.0 lakhs
2   P. Shivshankar 26.0 lakhs
3   Ajit Panja 3.5 lakhs
4   Balaram Jhakar 61.0 lakhs
5   N.D. Tiwari 25.0 lakhs
6   B.D.Thakne 10.0 lakhs
7   Kalpnath Rai 54.0 lakhs
8   C.K. Jaffar Sharif 10.0 lakhs
9   Buta Singh 7.0 lakhs
10  V.C. Shukla  65.0 lakhs
11  P.L.Shahi  11.3 lakhs
12  R.K.Dhawan 50.0 lakhs
13  Madhav rao Scindia 75.0 lakhs
14  Kamal Nath 17.0 lakhs
15  Arjun Singh 10.0 lakhs
16  S.L. Khurana 3.0 lakhs
17  Arif Mohd. Khan 756.0 lakhs
18  Asoke Sen 20.0 lakhs
19  Yashwant Sinha 21.0 lakhs
20  Devilal 50.0 lakhs
21  K. Natwar Singh 21.0 lakhs
22  Arjun Singh 10.0 lakhs
23  Chandram 1.0 lakhs

(Figures are according to CBI charge sheet) And of course, we have not mentioned the greats like Jayalalitha and Laloo Prasad Yadav who have attained pinnacles of performance in this Venture. And all these great men and women have emerged in the past 5 or 6 years and is only a miniscule fraction of the amount of wealth that has been generated by these exceptional strategies and their predecessors over the past 50 years.



In one estimate, the total amount of wealth in foreign bank accounts of Politicians only are $110 billion US dollars. The Indian national budget is $65billion and the total industrial infrastructure development needs for India to be at par with some of the developed countries is at $150 billion. Also, note that this amount is the cost of 366 nuclear reactors at the cost of $300 million dollar each.



With this we can create some awareness of the greatness of our country Leaders!!

some of the important ones in the following report.

<b>Bofors—‘the Smoking Gun’</b>
Introduction:
The Bofors scandal is a hallmark of Indian corruption. The list of accused included not only some central ministers but also people at the very top, including the former P.M. Mr Rajiv Gandhi. It also involved eminent personalities from Indian politics and also a powerful NRI family named the Hindujas.

The Chronology:
As the Bofors scandal has been dogging the Indian political scene intermittently, people have either lost interest or got lost following the lengthy proceedings. So let’s take a look at the chronology of events.

1. Jan. 20, 1984: CCPA clears the purchase of 155mm guns. Army submits preferences-- TR of Sofma, FH77B of Bofors and FH70 of IMS (OR)
2. May 3, 1985: S.K. Bhatnagar (Defence Secretary) informs manufacturers that the Government had not approved of appointment of Indian agents, acting foreign suppliers, Bofors having agents for the deal in India.
3. Aug.-Nov. 1985: Quattrochi contacts AE services which becomes Bofors Consultant and is promised 3% cut if the Indian deal is clinched before 1st April, 1986.
4. Sept. 3, 1986: AE services opens account in Nordfinanz Bank, Zurich.
5. Bofors remits $ 7.3 million to above account.
6. Sept. 16, 1986: AE services transfer money ($7.12 million) to the account of Colbar Investments in Geneva, controlled by Quattrochi.
7. April 16, 1987: Swedish radio claims that bribes were paid by Bofors to secure contract.
8. June 1, 1987: Swedish national audit bureau confirms money was paid by Bofors as "winding up" costs.
9. June 10, 1987: Minister of State for Defence Mr Arun Singh asks for cancellation of the contract unless Bofors gives the names of those who received money.
10. Jan. 22, 1990: CBI files FIR asking the Swiss to freeze bank accounts in which any commission was paid. Consequently, some Swiss accounts were frozen. The first set of documents arrives from Switzerland in Dec. 1990.
11. 1990 – ‘92: Swiss inquires are stalled by litigation in India. The mess compounded by External Affairs Minister M. S. Solanki, who passed an unsigned note to the Swiss on Feb. 1, 1992, saying that no further steps should be taken in Switzerland unless a final decision is taken in Indian courts.
12.June 23, 1993: Interpol informs the CBI of Quattrochi’s appeal in Switzerland against the release of bank documents to India. Quattrochi flies from India to settle in Malaysia.
13. Oct. 22, 1999: CBI files charge sheet: Q is accused.

The Duty of the CBI:
Having pursued the matter so long and having caused much controversy over the matter it is the CBI’s duty now to see to it that the real accused come to justice. It is its duty to see the evidence collected by it is analyzed carefully (without prejudices and desire for vengeance) and the facts are established solidly. It could not have asked for a more favourable time than now, the Vajpayee Govt with a majority on its hands backing up the CBI to fully investigate the case without any fear or favour whatsoever.


<b>The Hawala Scandal—‘the All-ensnaring One’</b>
Introduction:
The Hawala case, which came in the open in 1996 exploded in the face of Indian politics, unsettling all the major political players. For the first time in Indian politics, so many politicians were accused of having accepted bribes and misused their power. The Hawala case presents a crystal clear picture of the inefficient IT department. The Hawala web was woven in the autarkic period in the Indian economy during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Explanation:
The scandal, which came into light as a result of sporadic raids by the Directorate of Investigations, income tax, on hawala operators in 1991. These resulted in the seizure of certain diaries and files from S. K. Jain’s premises. S. K. Jain, the managing director of Bhilai Engineering Corporation (BEC) possessed certain documents that listed certain cash transactions made by him during 1988– 91. It showed a receipt of nearly Rs 53.5 crores from secret sources and subsequent disbursement of Rs 65 crs to bureaucrats, politicians, political parties and companies. This was the 2nd time that the BEC group was under scrutiny. The first time was when it was among those business houses suspected of engineering the assassination of the social activist and Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha leader Shanker Guha-Niyogi. Although details about the size of its partner in money terms was not available, BEC has an aggregate capacity for fabrication and assembly of 25,000 tones per annum of core equipment in the core sectors of steel, cement etc. It had executed major turnkey projects for several public and private sector companies with areas of 36 acres. No wonder then, such a company should be a prime target for seekers of political funding. Consequently, the hawala diaries named almost every prominent leader then who had in some or the other way accepted large amounts of cash, which they termed ‘gifts’.

What is Hawala?
Hawala or the parallel markets for foreign exchange originated back in the virtually autarkic period in the Indian economy in the 1950s and 1960s. Companies who made payments abroad and had to pay for acquired land used the hawala route, which investors also used to pelt their money in foreign assets. The converse was also true. Indians received remittances from abroad through the hawala market.

Hawala transfers were also used routinely by corporates to avoid both direct and indirect taxes. Companies book notional losses against which they transfer money abroad through hawala. With duties on imports remaining high, importers often under-invoiced imports and paid the duty on the forged amount while the balance in the period through the hawala route. Anticipations feared decline in the value of the Rupee. This meant that those who could convert rupees to dollars and transfer them abroad, with no convertibility on the capital account, the only route left was the hawala one. On the inflow side, a lot of illegal money comes in through illegal ways like drug trafficking, stock market and real estate.

The Scam:
The amount involved in the scam totaled Rs 65 crores. The lynchpin of S. K. Jain’s hawala network, ‘Amir Bhai’ had four a/cs in Geneva, Dubai, London and Antwerp from where he provided S. K. Jain, the prime accused, among others, with the required amount. He further distributed it to 32 bureaucrats, 30 politicians and NTPC officials. Among the top politicians implicated in the case were M/s L. K. Advani, V.C. Shukla, Madhavrao Scindia, Arjun Singh, Sharad Yadav, Yashwant Sinha and Balram Jakhad. However, excepting Sharad Yadav, all of them were later acquitted of all charges due to the lack of sustainable evidence, for which the CBI has attracted some amount of flak.

The Results:
When the Hawala scandal surfaced 55 initials mentioned in the diary fill in the political category. Of these 6 have died and of the held 115 names and initials which appear at various places in the dairy only 20 have been linked up. Way back in 1996 when it was disclosed it provided a severe blow to the politicians and all most every political party namely also congress and BJP.

The scandal, attracted the attention of the whole nation to the degree of corruption our political and economic structure has plunged in. The involvement of almost all party hands, politicians and business men of all color show that inspite of our rich moral and ethical patronage, all we are left with is the knowledge of a, ‘corrupt way to be’.

<b>The Telecom Scandal—‘Dial M for Money’</b>
Introduction:
Popularly known as the ‘Sukhram Scam’, this was a product of the gradual liberalization of the Indian economy. Every sector during this period was being thrown open to privatization. However, the country was not fully prepared for the onslaught of the market. It had no infrastructure, no guiding strategies and no crisis management regime. In such a situation, there is a normal tendency in powerful persons, who know the whole scene, to manipulate-- using their stature, post/s, power etc.-- things to their own benefit. It is precisely this that happened in the Department of Telecommunications in the early 90s.

The Chronology:
1. TEC floats a tender for 3000 MARR sets.
2. March ‘92– May ’93: TEC evaluates 35 bids for MARR systems given part order to ARM @ Rs 3.54 lac per system. Sets up Price Negotiation Team.
3. Sept. 1993: ARM asks Sukhram to restore price cut and orders 450 crystal sets instead of 300. Committee members object but are overruled.
4. Jan. 1994: New orders are placed on ARMS terms. DOT losses around 1.68 cr.
5. Jan. 16, 1995: Tender floated for basic telecom services.
6. March 1995: Bids to be closed, but postponed for unknown reasons. Bids finally submitted on June 7, 1995.
7. Aug. 31, 1995: HFCL bids highest in 9 circles at 85,000 crore rupees. Their bid is Rs 50,000 crore more than their nearest rival. HFCL’s ability to raise funds in doubt.

Sukhram’s Modus Operandi:
1. Get pliable bureaucrats. 2. Overrule officials. 3. Transfer officials who object. 4. Wait until the right moment in order to strike.

The Government was stunned by the scandal. Doubts were raised in the minds of government officials and ministers regarding the entire liberalization process. However, the government could not stop it as it was too far ahead in its course to stop it. The GOI would have to return over Rs 1900 crores which had been collected as license fees, if the agreement was to be stopped or abrogated or renegotiated. Also, the impact on foreign investment would have been extremely bad and India’s credibility broken to pieces.


<b>The Fodder Scam: ‘the Gawala Saga’</b>
Introduction:
A clique of graft and irregular politico-administrative patronage was exposed when the CBI unraveled the Rs-700-crore fodder scam in Bihar in July ’96. The accused included top officials in the Animal Husbandry Department (AHD) and their political patrons/bosses. The AHD was being milked dry—almost literally—by their unholy nexus!

Fodder for the Netas and Babus:
The racket was traced to have begun in 1983-4, when the AHD unwittingly overstepped their budgetary allocation while carrying out a project. As always Govt had their eyes shut. The officials smelt money and around 1985-6 the loot began. Local politicians sensed the swindle, but shamelessly plunged into the action. With their involvement, the daring of the AHD’s officials sore high, and another racket under the patronage of our politicians was initiated.

It was well coordinated between bureaucrats in various departments and officials of the AHD, in connivance with district collectors and commissioners, made fake allotments and withdrawal orders. Then with help from collaborators in the State Secretariat, these were presented to the treasury along with forged supporting bills to show supply of fodder and medicine from a network of dubious suppliers. The treasury passed the bills and the banks, equally unsuspectingly, credited the amounts to the suppliers’ account. The money was thus shared between some officials and their political protectors. This loot of the treasury continued for a decade and totaled to an amount around Rs 750 crore.

<b>The Urea Scam—‘Nitrogen Fixation’</b>
Introduction:
The Urea scam has its genesis in the P. V. Narsimha Rao regime. It is not only important because of the amount involved which was Rs 133 crore but also because of the negatives it generated. At the centre of controversy lay a dubious deal signed by the NFL with a little known Turkish firm called Karsan Danismanlik Turigam Samayi Ticarct Ltd for the supply of 200,000 tons of urea in Oct. ‘95. The CBI, which was probing the scam, charged the NFL management with making a full advance payment of $ 37.62 million to Karsan in complete violation of accepted business norms. The agreement was made without any bank guarantee/s, a complete insurance cover and even a letter of intent. Also, it would be naive to assume that the NFL M.D. could authorize payment of $ 38 million to the Turkish firm without the consent of scores of officials, going right upto the then Minister of Fertilizer. Possibly, even higher powers were involved because the system of fertilizer procurement does not permit such rash payments to be made.

The CBI found that a part of the payment amounting to $ 200,000 found its way back into India via an ANZ Grindlays Bank account in Hyderabad. The account belonged to Saikrishna Impex, agents for Karsan in India. The CBI believed that the sum was brought into India via Rea Brothers Ltd, a company with which Prakash Yadav was supposed to be closely involved. Thus, a clear political angle could be established.

All about Karsan:
Karsan is listed as a tourism firm in Turkey and is little known. The officials of the team sent to Ankara by the Ministry found that it was a very small firm even in Turkey and quite incapable of fulfilling the commitment it had made. Not only had NFL failed to check Karson’s credentials, it also had not taken insurance cover against the possibility of Karson not fulfilling its contractual obligations.

The Fallout:
NFL had planned to expand the capacity of its Nangal plant by 215,000 tonnes and that of its Panipat plant by 726,000 tonnes. Doubling the capacity of the Vijapin plant, involving an outlay of Rs 1000 crore, is also pending clearance. It was planned to get the money from the capital markets. An Euro-issue was also on the anvil. While the public issue was stalled owing to tight monetary conditions, the Euro-issue plan was scratched. The Ministry also instructed NFL to put a joint venture project in Syria with Zuari Agro Ltd-- for constructing a urea plant-- on hold. Politically, the scandal brought a number of Congress leaders, including Narsimha Rao, again into negative focus.

A Disgusted Conclusion
The details of the above-mentioned scams show how entrenched corruption is in our economic and political structures. These scams, some of which date back to the infancy of the Republic, show that prevention is the need of the hour. What we need is a complete rethink on our socio-political ethos and the creation of a new administrative paradigm that is in tune with the changing times. We should not patch up the loopholes but try to rebuild the whole structure.

The Political Dimensions:
Taking a decision at the highest executive level of the govt to tackle the problem of corruption is the sine qua non of effective action. Legislation should endorse decision and commitment-- it will help to sustain political resolve. Our leaders must set a personal example of prudence and insist on the same from their colleagues. The political leadership must allow the anti–corruption agencies full independence and autonomy of action. The executive should insist on the cooperative participation of all government departments. It must be ensured that means of mass communication are accessible to the anti–corruption agencies so that they can convey their message to the larger community. More positively, the active involvement of businessmen is needed to fight corruption and encourage higher ethical standards and the adoption of codes of conduct to demonstrate that clean business does generate profits. In a market economy the cooperation between business and govt is the achievement of shared goals by regulated limits of interest and the requirements of both parties. The crux of the matter is to have proper guidelines and sufficiently strict vigilance while implementing them properly
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