Washington:
The record increase in bank accounts and toilets is indicative of
India's fight against corruption as government has abolished middlemen's
role in transactions and is keeping a check on money spent on
sanitation, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.
Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
"If
you want to know how well India is addressing its corruption problems,
just take a look at bank accounts and toilets. That was the message from
Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, India's minister of state for commerce and
industry, at the Fortune Global Forum conference on Tuesday," Fortune
magazine said in a news report published yesterday.
At
the Fortune Global Forum conference in San Francisco, Sitharaman said
in a little over a year, 190 million Indian citizens have opened bank
accounts for the first time. The balances in the accounts are small,
just an average of USD 21 per account.
Nevertheless,
Sitharaman said, "financial inclusion" has been a major push of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's administration, not just because it can improve
the finances of India's poorest citizens, but because it also helps
stamp out corruption, the magazine reported on its website.
When
government workers are paid in cash, middlemen can take a portion of
those wages. That has been the case with India's pension payments as
well. Today, the government can deposit money directly in workers'
accounts, eliminating fraud.
Sitharaman
said that something as simple as counting toilets can offer a helpful
glimpse into India's progress in combating corruption. She said that for
60 years India provided money to put toilets into small villages around
the nation. But many of those toilets were never installed.
But
in the past year, the Indian government has made a major effort to
verify the efforts to increase sanitation. And that has helped reduce
corruption.
According
to the magazine, Dominic Barton, a managing director at McKinsey, said
that a recent report from the consulting firm found that government
reforms in India were not only making a difference for the nation's
citizens, but such moves were also making the country more attractive to
foreign businesses.
"Three
years ago, when clients would ask about doing business in India, I
would say, Don't waste your time. It's too complicated and too
difficult. That's changed dramatically," he was quoted as saying.
During
her San Francisco trip, Sitharaman also visited the Twitter
headquarters in Silicon Valley, wherein Twitter launched emoji of Make
in India, thus making it the first non US based brand.
She met its CEO Jack Dorsey and other senior executive.
PTI
