New Delhi: Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu has said the nation has to fight corruption, but "intelligently," as any witch-hunt could impact the genuine decision making process in the government.
"In the name of fighting corruption, we must not end up conducting witch-hunts. That can lead to an atmosphere of generalised suspicion, with grave downside risk... "Good people taking good decisions also begin to fear they will be the subject of finger-pointing and they then tend to defer taking the final decision," Basu told PTI in an interview. Corruption, he said, was like a tumour and had to be taken out.
The Chief Economic Advisor said in designing corruption control, there was a need for "a lot of professional input from economics and law in the same way as for taking out an organ we need professional medical knowledge. Determination is important but determination alone is not enough, it can in fact do more damage than good".
It may be recalled the leaders at the just concluded G-20 Summit reaffirmed their commitment to combat the menace of corruption and to provide a clean business environment. "We have made significant progress in implementing the Action Plan on combating corruption, promoting market integrity and supporting a clean business environment," the G20 Communique issued on Friday said.
Indian government has been facing flack from both the Opposition and civil society for not doing enough to deal with corruption and black money. The India Inc, however, has been complaining that the decision making process has slowed down and there was a kind of policy paralysis in the government.