One of the main reasons affecting our lives in todays world is corruption.  If you have to obtain anything especially in areas where a ordinary person does not have access to,  a sum has to be paid.  The more difficult the task the more it is bound to cost you.  That is what is called corruption.  A person if he has to get his work done faster has to pay it. While for some there is a option just to pay if he wants to get it fast, for others they do not have an option as a particular type of works needs to be done, but can be done by paying bribe.

Nature of a person.

To begin with it has got to do with nature of some people.  The foundation of corruption starts every early in life, it starts in school itself.  It starts with stealing of pencils and chalk pieces at a very tender age.  This is nothing but a desire to have something which is not ours which a person nurtures from childhood.  As a person grows up he begins to have bigger desires, more dreams beyond manageable limits and gets more courage to steal. Every attempt and a successful one at that, gives the more person much more confidence to graduate to the next level.

Family Compulsions.

The earning member is always under pressure from the family members.  While some family members understand the limitations of a earning member, there are others who cant understand as their desires and ambitions overshadow their vision.  Some family compulsions come in the form of:-

Wives wanting better dresses/ornaments and better facilities for their kids:- A person may be earning a meagre salary, but may be living in a locality where other residents may be earning well, either through fair means or foul means.  It is obvious that wives of husbands with better incomes are dressed up well and wear more ornaments.  Naturally the wife of the person who does not well gets tempted to wear similar dresses and therefore puts pressure on the husband.  Similarly children of wealthy parents have access to the best of education, other facilities in the form of pick up and drop to school in their vehicles and being allowed to use latest gadgets.  The facilities enjoyed by rich children are sufficient enough to spark a desire to the wife of a ordinary employee who also wants her children to be brought up will.  This desire to have the best facilities for themselves and their children make them lose their mental balance thereby beginning to expect more from their helpless husbands.

Grown up children have a tendency to aspire for  what their rich friends have.  For example if one of their friends have a expensive bike which is  beyond their parents income limits, still they tend to put pressure on their parents saying that they feel insulted in front of their friends.  This tends to put burden on the earning member because every parent would like to see their children happy and would want to have the best for them.

Social Commitments.

In a persons life there are social commitments which he has to abide to.  A father cannot keep a daughter unmarried for a long time or forever simply because he does not have the money to get her married.  There are two fields which are considered very noble and that is education and hospitalization.  Unfortunately in todays world these two fields are the most commercialized and probably the two most areas where huge rewards are assured once investments are made.  A person therefore has to plan to arrange money for all this. Hospitalization though is avoidable with better care, but marriage and education are certainly unavoidable.

Money to obtain a job:-

In some key organizations a person needs to pay a huge amount to obtain a certain job .  Normally these jobs do not  get a person good salaries, but gives the person sufficient clout and opportunities to make good money.  A corrupt person is definitely going to make the best out of this investment.  A person if not already corrupt, is forced to make money through corrupt means to recover the money he has paid to obtain a job.

Meagre Salaries.

While a normal person struggles to make both ends meet, the over ambitious and greedy find it ten times tougher.  If that is not enough most employees are paid meagre salaries.  Therefore employees who are honest, may look into possibilities of making money through wrong ways to make both ends meet and when it comes to the naturally corrupt, it is just the perfect opportunity to justify their crooked thinking. While the above mentioned factors contribute to corruption, corruption can certainly be minimized if not eliminated if the following suggestions are followed:-

Suggestions to minimize corruption.

1. Companies have to conduct a survey of average monthly expense of a family.  A company has to consider one person as 3 persons because a minimum family consists of 3 members, if taken into consideration as a husband wife and 1 kid. Companies have to caluclate the average cost of educating one child.  The cost of provision, clothes, transportation and other related expenses in the average life of a family needs to be caluclated.

2. Companies need to take care of hospitalization of family members by reimbursing the expenses or by offering medical insurance.

3. Companies need to keep a margin for long term expenses of a family, for example marriage of a employees daughter or higher education.

4. Companies need to look into minimum retirement benefits of a employee, so that an employee need not be dependent on anybody else.

5. Families members have also a role to play.  Wives should not try to compete with wives of well earning husbands.  They should realize that they may be enjoying lesser facilities than few others, but should also think they are also better of compared to few others.  Therefore it evens out.

6. Grown up children once the reach the age of maturity, should not expect too much facilities from their parents, like the children of rich parents do.

If companies offer salaries taking the reasonable needs of a employees family, and family members too understand the limitations of their breadwinner, corruption can be minimized if not eliminated.

Regards

Satish