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A reduction in the bribe amount bureaucrats are willing to pay for the right to receive bribes themselves would be a great indicator of success. As an aside, I

A reduction in the bribe amount bureaucrats are willing to pay for the right to receive bribes themselves would be a great indicator of success. As an aside, I'm an American who worked last week in the US with a guy from my company's Indian office. Because India apparently has high import duties on watches, he decided this trip would be a good opportunity to purchase a watch for his wife. When he asked me where to to to buy a Swiss Army watch, I suggested Amazon.com. I'm a Prime member and offered to use my account so he could get free 2nd day shipping. I ordered the watch while he observed. "That's all you had to do?" I hadn't even used 1-click! When it shipped, I emailed him the tracking number. Over the next couple of days, he checked UPS.com in semi-disbelief and seemed amazed when the watch showed up as expected. Apparently, according to my co-worker, there's little online purchasing of physical goods in India. While credit cards are becoming increasingly common, delivery systems are seen as too corrupt to be trusted. "You'll order a watch, but only an empty box will be delivered." It probably also doesn't help that a product purchased by a middle-class Indian might be worth months of lower-class wages. It's the hidden, non-physical infrastructure that's so important. Layers and layers of laws, enforcement, responsible government, etc. are required to produce a system where an expensive item can be delivered to my house reliably.

samratjp 17y ago
What that guy said is true. Indian customs is terrible. And tracking anything in India is a crazy challenge - that includes people as well. The biggest thing that pisses me off every time I travel there is the inter-state crossings where you have to pay a small "toll." Nothing like your 50¢ auto-vending one. The most interesting bribe chain is perhaps the driver license (DMV) anything. The bribes for those are so bad that a significant percentage of drivers even avoid getting a license. And if you are getting a car license, you will most likely need a broker - as in you would need to learn to drive from a "driving school," which will broker for your license at a "fee." The best/sad part is that upon bribery you don't even have to drive to pass the test. Of course, this may not be everywhere, but just speaking from observation. As about bribery punishment, there have been literally thousands of movies with the theme.
- ahk 17y ago
  Customs is terrible only because people don't want to pay the actual customs duties as set by the government and will try anything possible to avoid paying including indulging in corruption.
  - samratjp 17y ago
    True, but also is nightmarish to ship anything there.
  - mallipeddi 17y ago
    Maybe Indian Customs has gotten better and is not acting petty but try importing USD $500k worth of equipment/machinery from Germany and then see how many ways Customs figures out to hold the goods and cause unnecessary delays and somehow everything magically works when you fly to their office in Kochi and do what's necessary to please them :)
    - ahk 17y ago
      If that's a genuine incident you're talking about, you could try contacting Shashi Tharoor (the local MP, who's on Twitter and seems very accessible) to see what can be done for the future. Nothing's going to change if you don't atleast try to fix them.
- mallipeddi 17y ago
  You don't pay a toll at inter-state crossings if you're a private vehicle. What I think you might have experienced are just the ridiculous number of toll booths setup on highways to collect fees for newly constructed sections of the highways. These road project contracts are handed over to external construction companies and they recover the costs by collecting toll for the next 10-15 years. A 5 hour journey from Bangalore -> Chennai includes 6-7 stops at toll booths each adding 5-10 mins to the journey depending on whether the cars before you have the exact change or not and how lazy the toll booth operator is.
- mallipeddi 17y ago
  Btw I can attest to the fact about having to bribe indirectly in order to get a driving license (learner's permit actually). I go to the DMV/RTO office and submit my application and the guy just throws away my application form stating I don't have a valid address proof. I showed him my rental contract. I showed him a mobile phone bill, bank statement proof, etc but none of those were acceptable to him. So I go downstairs and find a driving instructor and pay his fees. This time he files a separate application just 30 mins after my application gets rejected and this time the guy doesn't even bother reading anything in the application. He just signs it and it's all taken care of. Basically the driving school guy pays the DMV officers a commission for every application that they approve.
ahk 17y ago
Sorry, that's just wrong. Delivery systems in India are pretty good in most cities and online stores are a dime a dozen (nothing as dominant as Amazon however). There are even sites which deliver direct from the US (pretty much everything available there). Online payment systems are actually more advanced than in the US. The real reason is due to a penny-pincher mentality. Even young highly educated people with well paying jobs tend to forego internet connectivity at home and scrounge about in internet cafés or libraries. The value and productivity gains of access is completely discounted. Laptops are still considered luxury items for the elite. Folks here consider actually paying for shipping to be stupid and will spend entire an afternoon walking about in the sun shopping for second-hand books at road-side stalls etc in lieu of forking out hard earned cash just for convenience.
- ShabbyDoo 17y ago
  Interesting. The guy I work with lives/works in Pune but seemed quite familiar with Mumbai. Do you order stuff online? If so, does it arrive as expected? What are shipping charges like for, say, a 5000 rupee (~ $100?) item weighing 1 kg? Is insurance included? I specified that price point because I think it's the maximum insurance payout included in UPS's basic pricing in the US. Just curious.
  - ahk 17y ago
    Yes, quite a few items this past year or so. No issues with any so far. Most items have been books, ps3 games or supplements in the 500 to 3k range, so nothing past 5k yet. Not too sure about insurance, but companies like DHL/BlueDart should have something I guess. Shipping charges have ranged from free to Rs 50/ Rs 100 (for local items) to Rs 500/ Rs 750 (for US shipments). Shipment times range from a couple of days to about a month depending on if you're paying anything for it.
    - ShabbyDoo 17y ago
      These prices certainly support your argument. Are online goods priced at least as competitively as in physical stores?

samratjp 17y ago

What that guy said is true. Indian customs is terrible. And tracking anything in India is a crazy challenge - that includes people as well. The biggest thing that pisses me off every time I travel there is the inter-state crossings where you have to pay a small "toll." Nothing like your 50¢ auto-vending one. The most interesting bribe chain is perhaps the driver license (DMV) anything. The bribes for those are so bad that a significant percentage of drivers even avoid getting a license. And if you are getting a car license, you will most likely need a broker - as in you would need to learn to drive from a "driving school," which will broker for your license at a "fee." The best/sad part is that upon bribery you don't even have to drive to pass the test. Of course, this may not be everywhere, but just speaking from observation. As about bribery punishment, there have been literally thousands of movies with the theme.

ahk 17y ago
Customs is terrible only because people don't want to pay the actual customs duties as set by the government and will try anything possible to avoid paying including indulging in corruption.
- samratjp 17y ago
  True, but also is nightmarish to ship anything there.
- mallipeddi 17y ago
  Maybe Indian Customs has gotten better and is not acting petty but try importing USD $500k worth of equipment/machinery from Germany and then see how many ways Customs figures out to hold the goods and cause unnecessary delays and somehow everything magically works when you fly to their office in Kochi and do what's necessary to please them :)
  - ahk 17y ago
    If that's a genuine incident you're talking about, you could try contacting Shashi Tharoor (the local MP, who's on Twitter and seems very accessible) to see what can be done for the future. Nothing's going to change if you don't atleast try to fix them.
mallipeddi 17y ago
You don't pay a toll at inter-state crossings if you're a private vehicle. What I think you might have experienced are just the ridiculous number of toll booths setup on highways to collect fees for newly constructed sections of the highways. These road project contracts are handed over to external construction companies and they recover the costs by collecting toll for the next 10-15 years. A 5 hour journey from Bangalore -> Chennai includes 6-7 stops at toll booths each adding 5-10 mins to the journey depending on whether the cars before you have the exact change or not and how lazy the toll booth operator is.
mallipeddi 17y ago
Btw I can attest to the fact about having to bribe indirectly in order to get a driving license (learner's permit actually). I go to the DMV/RTO office and submit my application and the guy just throws away my application form stating I don't have a valid address proof. I showed him my rental contract. I showed him a mobile phone bill, bank statement proof, etc but none of those were acceptable to him. So I go downstairs and find a driving instructor and pay his fees. This time he files a separate application just 30 mins after my application gets rejected and this time the guy doesn't even bother reading anything in the application. He just signs it and it's all taken care of. Basically the driving school guy pays the DMV officers a commission for every application that they approve.

ahk 17y ago

Sorry, that's just wrong. Delivery systems in India are pretty good in most cities and online stores are a dime a dozen (nothing as dominant as Amazon however). There are even sites which deliver direct from the US (pretty much everything available there). Online payment systems are actually more advanced than in the US. The real reason is due to a penny-pincher mentality. Even young highly educated people with well paying jobs tend to forego internet connectivity at home and scrounge about in internet cafés or libraries. The value and productivity gains of access is completely discounted. Laptops are still considered luxury items for the elite. Folks here consider actually paying for shipping to be stupid and will spend entire an afternoon walking about in the sun shopping for second-hand books at road-side stalls etc in lieu of forking out hard earned cash just for convenience.

ShabbyDoo 17y ago
Interesting. The guy I work with lives/works in Pune but seemed quite familiar with Mumbai. Do you order stuff online? If so, does it arrive as expected? What are shipping charges like for, say, a 5000 rupee (~ $100?) item weighing 1 kg? Is insurance included? I specified that price point because I think it's the maximum insurance payout included in UPS's basic pricing in the US. Just curious.
- ahk 17y ago
  Yes, quite a few items this past year or so. No issues with any so far. Most items have been books, ps3 games or supplements in the 500 to 3k range, so nothing past 5k yet. Not too sure about insurance, but companies like DHL/BlueDart should have something I guess. Shipping charges have ranged from free to Rs 50/ Rs 100 (for local items) to Rs 500/ Rs 750 (for US shipments). Shipment times range from a couple of days to about a month depending on if you're paying anything for it.
  - ShabbyDoo 17y ago
    These prices certainly support your argument. Are online goods priced at least as competitively as in physical stores?