Women make up half of the world’s population
and yet they are still largely excluded from politics and decision-making
power. The world is not yet on track to achieve gender equality in
politics by the end of this decade. The good news is that women are
steadily taking up more space in governmental leadership around the world,
with more and more of them securing seats in national parliaments, and a
good number of countries implementing parliamentary quotas to ensure
fair representation of women. Although this representation has reached a
significant milestone, the increase of women’s representation is not yet
happening fast enough. At the current rate, it will take another 50
years before we can achieve gender parity in parliaments around the world. The
Covid-19 pandemic had detrimental effects on women’s representations,
with national parliamentary elections being postponed in close140 to 20 countries, gendered socio-economic
inequalities being exacerbated and online violence against women being
more widespread than ever. However, there160 were positive trends in 2020, such as remote
technologies that can help in balancing the caring responsibilities with
political career aspirations. Electoral gender quotas applied in many
countries have had positive effects on gender parity. Parliaments with
quotas have elected 12 per cent more women to single and lower chambers.
Progress is being made, but parliaments must be more open to women.
Madam, this is not an occasion to trade
allegations and I am not going to deal with this matter as the matter is before
the court or before the various Committees of Parliament and they will come
with their own conclusions. However, I would like to say that corruption is a multifaceted
problem. Therefore, we, as a nation, 280 have to find practical and effective means to
tackle it, and this is not merely the responsibility of the Central
Government. The State Governments are responsible for over 50 per cent of the
total national spending and the conduct320 of the State Governments, which is the most
common way people come in contact with Government,
is essentially the responsibility of the States. There is anger in the country.
There is anger about the misuse of public offices. Therefore, both at the
Centre and the States, it is our obligation to clean up the system of
governance and to ensure that we leave behind for our children and grandchildren
a system of public administration which is capable of meeting the challenge of
the 21st Century. In my address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red
Fort, I listed a420
number of areas where in the next couple of months I would like our
Government to take initiative and I stand committed to whatever I
promised from the ramparts of the Red fort.
Madam,
corruption sources are numerous. Until the early 90s, the biggest single
source of corruption was the industrial licensing system, the import
controls and the foreign480
exchange controls. The liberalisation that we brought about has ended that part
of this corruption story. Another major part of corruption was the rates of
taxation which were so exorbitant that people were tempted to enter into
corrupt practices to reduce their tax liabilities. We have worked hard to
simplify and streamline the taxation system and now there is less scope for
corruption as far as taxation matters are concerned. Even though I recognise
that a residual element is still there560 and we have to work together through
various mechanisms, including Goods and Services tax which is now in public
domain and, which is an obligation which our country must fulfil if it wants to
move forward. But there are many other areas where corruption still persists.
We have to tackle this problem from various angles. There are Central
Government programmes administered by the State Governments but there are
leakages. Therefore, we must find ways and means of reforming the640 system of public
administration so that these leakages can be plucked. Malfunctioning of public
distribution has been widely commented upon. We must, therefore, devise new
methodologies to ensure that Public Distribution System becomes free of
malpractices. This is an obligation which we can discharge only with full cooperation
of the State Governments. Madam, yet another source of corruption is Government
contracts.700
Wherever Government contracts are given, they are given in a manner which
creates suspicion that something is going wrong. Therefore, we need a Public
Procurement Act, as some other countries have, to streamline our contracting
mechanisms in a manner in which there will be less scope for corruption in
future. In certain areas, greater competition itself will reduce the scope for
corruption. But we still know that there are areas of infrastructure where
competition can at best be only limited.
There
is scope for regulation. In the last couple of years, we have put in place
regulatory mechanisms, but800
the functioning of these regulatory mechanisms, especially with regard to the
management of the infrastructure, is something which requires attention. That
is yet another area where we must find ways and means to streamline the
regulatory system, so that there is840 less scope for corruption. The House has my
assurance that we will work in full public glare to fulfil what we have
promised. I have set up a group to look at the scope for reducing the amount of
discretion that ministers have at the Centre. This group has made some
important suggestions. They will be considered by the Cabinet and we will put
in place a mechanism to reduce the scope for misuse of discretionary power or
to eliminate discretionary power wherever it can be done without detriment to
public interest or achievement of public good.
Madam,
it is in the context of corruption that the last few weeks have seen momentous
developments. Shri Anna Hazare has gone960 on fast. His plea is that we should adopt
the Jan Lokpal Bill that has been drafted by them. The background980 of this whole exercise
is well known to this august House. We have sittings together with the five
representatives of Shri Anna Hazare, including himself, who met with our five
representatives and a large measure of agreement was reached with regard to the
shape of the Lokpal Bill that we should have. On certain matters there
was disagreement and that disagreement could not be resolved and
therefore we have referred that matter for consideration of all parties and the
consensus was that the Government should come with its own version of the Bill
and various parties would then reflect on what to do with that Bill. We
discharged that obligation. We submitted that Bill to Parliament. It has now
been referred to the Standing Committee.
Mr.
Chairman, Sir, I thank you very much for allowing me to take part1120 in the discussion
relating to the Customs Act. First of all, I welcome the initiative taken by
the Government to amend this Act. It always comes to my mind that whenever we
talk about customs, this arm of the Government does not only generate revenues
for the country, but also protects the security, integrity and unity of the
country. It keeps a watch on the nation's economy and protects the domestic
interests. I must also thank the Government for bringing out this amendment to
recover taxes running into thousands of crores of rupees. By making this
amendment to Customs Act, the specified customs officers would be recognized
for assessment of import duty with retrospective effect. I am also sure that
with this amendment, the customs tax evaders will not get benefited at the cost
of exchequer on mere technical grounds. 1260 These tax evaders were taking shelter
under the umbrella that the notices issued by the officers are not valid1280 because the officers
who issued such notices are not competent to take action against such customs
tax evaders. So, this amendment will definitely take care of the need of the
hour to see that the customs tax evaders do not get the opportunity again on
this flimsy ground.
Every
country in the world has got a strong customs department and stringent rules.
We should also strengthen and tighten our Customs Department. It is not that we
doubt our own officers in the Customs Department. We should make rules which
will ensure that only the goods that deserve to be imported reach Indian ports
and airports. India is a country which is facing dumping of all products from
all over the world, 1400
whether it is required in our land or not. But the world is taking advantage of
the softness of Indian rules given the way in which the customs tax evaders had
been taking shelters on the mere technical1440 fault in the existing Customs Act.
Today, godowns of our Customs Department are flooded with unclaimed foreign
goods. How have these goods found their way to India? This type of dumping
should be stopped.
One
more important thing which I would like to mention here is that today Customs
Department has become one of the main revenue-generating departments of the
Government. This is because today the country's industrial progress has slowed
down. We have been witnessing a decreasing trend in industrial production. Now
the Indian customers are moving towards foreign goods and our people have
become dependent on foreign goods. This is not a welcome step. We need to stop
this and we should promote our own products. The Customs Department should be
made more sophisticated and its personnel should have more training. The policy
of transfer of customs officers should be followed meticulously to make the
customs transactions more transparent. 1590
