Legalized Bribery ? :-/

"Why, for a Class of Bribes, the Act of Giving a Bribe should be Treated as Legal" is an article written by The Chief Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India,Kaushik Basu..According to the article, Dr.Basu thinks that the corrupt practice of bribery can be reduced by legalizing "Giving a bribe" and double penalizing taking one. There have also been various articles in news media supporting this idea.

But I think, If we legalize "Giving a bribe" , then the law will give all legal rights and protection to all those people who have enough money-to let some cash flow out into officer's pockets-for escaping from the legal punishments when they are caught in -illegal/rules breaking- incidents. They will be allowed legally to cash out of violation of rules without any hesitation or fear, while trying to offer money. The article also talks about breaking the trust between the bribe givers and bribe takers and the scenario describing a bribe giver using secret camera and this rule to record the officer accepting the bribe, which seems very unrealistic to me, for the fact that for a common man to gain access to such technology ( like a secret cam ? ) is first of all economically not viable for everyone to use and learning to use it is another constrain and certainly appears to be a cinema scenario rather than-one happening in day-to-day life. It will be really great if such expertise training is offered to one and all and certainly this idea might work perfect.

I would argue that to a certain extent legalizing might seem reasonable if both giving and accepting bribes-were legalized , Like how "betting" is legalized in some countries, whereas, it is illegal in India. But this article talks about legalizing the act of giving the bribe. I can only see this option of legalizing of giving a bribe, doing more harm - than the good it might do for the country. For a problem like corruption-bribery, it should be treated from the roots.

According to my opinion, the way to move forward is to make people aware of their rights. What they can do-to get their work done. With the RTI now in action, No officer can delay the process of documentation in any government agency and at any time, one can exercise their right to know the status of their work and can go to higher authorities if the work is being delayed for the reason of not offering a bribe. For example, you can always file an RTI to know the status of your passport application. This is just one of the means that comes into my mind and the even more realistic step according to me is to expect a change in ten years from now, and can only be achieved if we made sure that all the "children of today" know /realize/ understand that the act of bribery is not a legitimate practice and that money should be earned and not sucked from other people's hard work and blood.

The right way is education.” Educate to eradicate bribery & Educate to eradicate poverty"

Legalized :Bribery ? :-/ is my response to an article that I read today.
Here is the link to the article :  http://finmin.nic.in/WorkingPaper/Act_Giving_Bribe_Legal.pdf