Like diseases and pathogens, it is essential that various types of corruption are identified and classified, based on their characteristics. The analogy with medical care goes further, because different types of corruption require different strategies – medications – for being effectively curbed and controlled, if not eliminated altogether. Several authorities have classified corruption based on appropriate criteria, such as who they impact, what processes they affect and how they may be best tackled. A simple classification is based upon a combination of these criteria and a good place to start is to separate acts of corruption into those that primarily affect state actions and those that affect the private sector. Of course, this is not a neat, water tight separation – plenty of corruption involves the interphase between the government and private corporate or professional entities; I shall explore these in greater detail in future blogs.

Let us look at public sector corruption at first. The most common experiences of corruption are those that concern the daily transactions that a citizen may engage with the government. For example, certification and identification services and licencing. The ordinary citizen requires several certifications at different stages in their lives. Birth, death and life certificates come readily to mind. Then there are others too, like caste certificates, residence certificates and domicile certificates, those that certify that a person is not insolvent such as income certificates, insolvency certificates, or that properties are not subject to any encumbrances or that a particular individual has a greater claim to properties, through a succession certificate.

The variety of certificates that an individual may require, certainly in a procedure gridlocked country such as India, may exceed more than 50, over any individual’s life span ranging from those that certify a certain status or identity, like a driving licence, a passport, a ration card, to licencing services concern the permissions that an individual may require to undertake certain actions, such as constructing a house, or commencing a business.

Clearances may be required from various departments, such as the Pollution Control Board, the Municipality, power utility, water utility and so on, before someone starts a new business venture. Government also delivers many services, such as food rations at subsidised prices, education, nutrition and protection. Accessing these services, say, to obtain admission in a school run by the government, or filing a police complaint or reporting a crime is a transaction that can be prone to corruption.

The second kind of corruption touches the procurement actions of the government. The government is typically the largest buyer in the market; procuring a spectrum of products and services ranging from paper clips to dam building contracts, from fighter aircraft to road laying contracts. Typically, these transactions, if corrupt, can increase the burden on the taxpayer’s money, but this is not something that an individual will experience first hand, unlike say the obtaining of a certificate or the issue of a licence. Procurement corruption requires an entirely different strategy on their control.

The third kind of transaction that may be corruption prone is the converse of procurement transactions; namely, when the government sells goods and services. These also cover a wide range of scale and value. The government sells waste paper for recycling and also bandwidth on the airwaves for mobile telephony. Mining rights are sold, so also electricity, tourist locations, government land, and such like. Again, corruption related to these transactions do not affect citizens directly, but short selling by the government of assets such as mineral resources, or air waves, can seriously compromise citizen interest.

The fourth kind of corruption involves the regulatory activities of the government. Gone are the days when only the judicial arm of the government dealt with the settlement of disputes. A plethora of generalist and specialist regulatory authorities now adjudicate in issues and disputes relating to various transactions, whether it is delay in obtaining a service, filing an application for admission to a school under the Right to Education Act, disputes relating to tariff fixation for power supply, insurance related disputes, house dwelling related conflicts, and matters of domestic relevance such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and succession.

A fifth kind of corruption concerns the political arena. These do not necessarily fall squarely in the domain of the public sphere, but nevertheless, in a democracy, can seriously undermine the setting and execution of policy. That in turn leads to corruption that is so large, overarching and yet nebulous – the corruption that relates to matters concerning the nation as a whole, a kind of corruption that is a mélange of all other forms of corruption; namely, Policy Corruption and State Capture.

Each one of these forms of corruption requires a different approach to be tackled effectively. In my next blog I attempt to explore the phenomenon of over the counter corruption, which touches many aspects of service delivery. This is what citizens see the most, and tackling this form of corruption is often what sets citizens perceptions on how best corruption can be controlled.

The first part of this blog series can be found here.