'Import rules give officials power to punish, bribes now routine': Ex-Finance Secy on Wintrack row

 

Amid a row over bribery charges against Chennai Customs, former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said corruption remains a deeply entrenched part of India's business ecosystem. He described bribery as a "common practice" that both officials and traders quietly accept as the system's working reality.

"What has come out is a very common sort of business practice in India," Garg said while speaking to India Today. "I am sorry to say, but that's a fact."

Garg explained that such corruption usually stays hidden because both sides - government officials and businessmen - understand and accept it as the norm. "It remains under covers. It doesn't come out in the open because both sides, the government officials as well as the businessmen, understand that that is the way to do business," he said.

He described bribery as something that has gradually been absorbed into the country's business logic - no longer an exception, but a cost factored into every deal. "That is considered as part of the cost to some extent, and then they go ahead and do their business," he said. Only when such demands become "unreasonable or uncontrollable," he noted, do disputes spill into the open and threaten the basic functioning of a business.

Garg pointed to recent examples in the import sector where new compliance requirements have multiplied. "There is a requirement for batteries import to get an EPR (extended producer's responsibility) certificate from the environmental authorities," he said. "There is another requirement which the customs have cited that you have to get from the meteorology department a certificate that what you are importing is in compliance with that. There is a BIS additional requirement."

"So this gives the handle in the hands of the customs official. In this case, these three certificates have been asked which is impossible for anyone to produce," Garg said. "So it is the policymakers' problem, which they create. They say it is the ease of doing business, but in the process, we keep on creating more and more hurdles. So it's a very sad situation."

Garg also underlined the limited options most businessmen have when faced with demands for bribes. For many, he said, paying such amounts is simply part of getting the job done. "For the businessman, the idea is to do business," Garg said. "Paying some money is the cost of doing business. It's part of the cost structure, which he takes into account."

He argued that it was unrealistic to expect every entrepreneur to challenge the system or report corruption. "Businessmen don't have time to go to authorities and fight the system," he said. "As long as it is reasonable, they don’t make an issue out of it."

Referring to the Wintrack case, he said: "He went to the senior officers in Chennai. Now would you expect him to come to Delhi or to other senior officers to chase his case? He is to do his business or to do all these kind of things?"

Earlier this week, Tamil Nadu-based logistics firm Wintrack announced that it would cease its import-export operations in India. The company cited "relentless harassment" by Chennai Customs over the last 45 days. Wintrack founder Prawin Ganeshan claimed that officials retaliated after he twice exposed alleged bribery demands this year, leaving his business "crippled and destroyed" in India.

The Ministry of Finance has has ordered a fact-based inquiry into the charges levelled by Wintrack.