Retail Corruption in India?

Professor Ravi Ramamurti, Director of the Center for Emerging Markets at Northeastern University, is featured in the August 26th story in The Times of India entitled, “Retail graft has gone wholesale” by Pallavi Srivastava. The reporter writes that the retail industry is thriving in India but in fact, there is an ongoing corruption problem between companies wanting to gain a competitive advantage and bureaucrats and politicians. Ravi explains that India is ahead of many developing countries but still has a ways to go. “India has a long way to go before our institutions are truly professional and independent, or the average public official's salary is high enough to make corruption unappealing," says Professor Ramamurti. "Keeping in mind that most corrupt officials earn many times their salary through corruption, it will take a huge pay increase (or moral awakening) to wean them off corruption." Ravi further adds that with economic growth within India, the corruption has moved from small 'retail corruption' to larger 'wholesale corruption.’ On the flipside, in certain industries, there is lack of a monopoly that has led to the decrease of corruption and the consumer is king.

To read the full article, go here:
http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/retailgraft.htm