从银行账户和洗手间看印度腐败

银行户头也好，如厕之地也罢，都在释放印度腐败形势缓解的好消息。

如果想知道印度政府治理腐败有多大成效，只需要看一看这个国家的银行账户和洗手间。

这是印度商业和工业部部长尼尔马拉•西沙拉曼在《财富》全球论坛上传达的讯息。

在一年多时间里，1.9亿印度国民第一次开立了自己的银行账户。虽然账户余额较少，平均每个账户只有21美元，但西沙拉曼说，“金融普惠”是莫迪总理所领导的政府花大力气推动的，这不仅是因为它可以改善最贫穷国民的经济状况，还因为它也有助于打击国内腐败。

当政府以现金支付公务员工资时，就会冒出一些将部分工资中饱私囊的中间人。印度支付的养老金也存在这个问题。现在政府可以将付款直接存入公务员的银行账户，这就能消除上述公款欺诈。

西沙拉曼还介绍，即使是统计公厕数量这样简单的方法，也可以从一个侧面有效地了解印度反腐的进展。她说，印度政府60年来一直在拨款，用于在全国各地的小村镇修建公厕，可许多本该建立的公厕从来没有真正动工。直到2014年，政府大力开展核实行动，确认提高卫生水平的投入是否落到实处。这一大动作也推动了反腐进程。

“印度过去一直投入资金为学校兴建公厕。但是，天知道那些钱去哪儿了。”西沙拉曼说。

全球知名管理咨询公司麦肯锡的董事总经理多米尼克•巴顿提到，该公司最近的一份报告发现，印度政府推行的改革不但改善了国民的生活，还增强了本国对外企的吸引力。

巴顿说：“三年前，有客户咨询在印度做生意的时候，我会回答：‘别浪费时间了，那儿形势太复杂，难度太大。’现在简直天壤之别。”(财富中文网)

译者：Pessy

校对：詹妮

Both are signals of declining fraud in the country.

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.

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 $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.

When government workers are paid in cash, middle men 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 added that something as simple as counting toilets can offer a helpful glimpse into India’s progress in combatting 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.

“India was spending money to put toilets in schools, but god knows where the money went,” says Sitharaman.

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,'” said Barton. “That’s changed dramatically.”