Corruption being blown out of proportion, says Sam Pitroda

Chairman of National Innovation Council Sam Pitroda feels that corruption has become a way of life in Indian society and it was being blown out of proportion. "I think lot of this corruption is blown out of proportion. First of all, let me tell you - not that I like corruption, don't get me wrong, corruption is a way of life in our society," Pitroda told reporters replying to a question on corruption being a big issue for UPA government today.

Speaking at "Meet the Press", organised by the Bangalore Press Club and the Reporters Guild of Bangalore, he said that it was not that any party was corrupt or not, but everybody in the society was corrupt.
"Business is corrupt, teachers are corrupt, doctors are corrupt, politicians are corrupt, everybody is corrupt. Not just the Indian society is corrupt, there is corruption in US but it is sophisticated. As it is sophisticated, you and I don't get affected directly. There is corruption in China, Japan, Russia - so it has became a way of life, not that I like it. But let's not get hung-up on it," he said.

Pitroda said that one can't stop doing things just because there was corruption. "If somebody is corrupt, action should be taken... but you can't take 20 year to decide it.
Fix it soon, three years or whatever."

He stressed on the need to improve the system slowly and said if somebody has done wrong then he should pay for it; each one of us has to take responsibility...so I think we will have to work with the system we have and slowly and slowly improve." 

Pitroda also stated that good work done by the government was not being publicised and said "we probably didn't do a good job of communicating, explaining to people." To a question as to who was accountable for this communication gap, he said "I don't blame anybody, there is no sense in blaming somebody, everyone has their own style; we didn't do a good job of communicating, that's what people think and I am just telling, what people tell me." When I tell what we have done - they say we didn't know that, we didn't know this... everybody wants information to be given to them on their lap, he added.

When asked whether UPA will come back to power, Pitroda said "of course, they will come back. I think they will win and they will form the government." 

Pitroda said India's destiny was going to be decided in this election and the next decade as "we are at a tipping point, we are at cross roads." 

Advocating the need for more and more young people to play active role in shaping the future of India, he said that older people were messing up the system. "...there is so much that we need to do and the only answer is we rely on young," he added.