Opinion Roads and schools

The editorial concludes: “During the NDA regime,in five years 25,000 kilometres of four and six-lane highways were built at a rate of 11 km per day. In the first fifty years of Independent India only 556 km of four and six-lane highways were built at a rate of 11 km per year. If we examine the UPA record in the last five years we see that the Manmohan government sincerely kept the pace of ‘Congress rate of road building’. The Golden Quadrilateral did not make any progress after the Vajpayee government left,completing 90 per cent of the work. Same is the fate of the North-South,East-West (NSEW) Corridor project launched by the NDA. Completion of Golden Quadrilateral alone will save Rs 8,000 crore annually in fuel costs. The ambitious NSEW project is late by four years because of similar reasons. This is the challenge before the new minister”

Account for yourselves

In a piece titled “A Law to Make Legislators Accountable,” Madhu Deolekar writes: “To make a democracy successful,the onus is on the people and their representatives. The electors and the elected are expected to discharge their responsibilities,their duties with integrity and honesty on their own volition. A self-imposed discipline (atmanushasan) is regarded as the best imposition of code of conduct… The work or duties of a member are enormous and time consuming. He has hardly any time to attend to his personal,professional or business matters. For carrying out the above narrated functions,a legislator has to work on his own volition; there is no binding or compulsion of any kind,except the moral binding. Therefore,to pinpoint duties of an elected representative is rather a Herculean task. What people should expect from a member is that his conduct should be fair,honourable,above reproach and unquestionable. He should not tarnish the image of the august institution that he is called upon to represent. He should be above corruption and scandals. Normally,if found guilty of breach of honourable conduct,without hesitation he should be given the same punishment as provided by law. However,it is rarely done. In public life there is no greater sanction than the moral code. The electors also have to keep a watch on the conduct of their representative. In this election,150 MPs are elected with criminal charges against them. This number is more than the number of members with criminal record in the previous Lok Sabha. The number of crorepati MPs is 300. Does this reflect the choice of voters? Because,the election time is the proper time for the voters to scrutinise the performance and conduct of the candidate. Whom would you blame — the electors or the elected,or the electoral system?”

He adds: “Recently,some parliamentarians in Britain were found guilty of wrongfully billing the state exchequer for big and small expenses. Some guilty MPs were forced to retire; others were called upon to repay the money. Leaders of political parties are now working along with a vigilant media and civil society groups to cleanse the system,starting with asking tainted MPs to quit office instead of merely trading charges. We,in our country,also need to act to stem the rot¿ It would be in public interest to enact laws to specify pin pointed duties and responsibilities of people’s elected representatives and their political parties. People expect the Election Commission to take a lead in framing relevant laws,which will minimize corruption among elected representatives and make them accountable for their conduct. For this,the EC should take the help of knowledgeable members from the civil society. Sooner it is done the better for the health of our democracy”.

Compiled by Suman K. Jha