Urjit R Patel: Preventive vigilance - the key tool of good governance at public sector institutions

Speech by Dr Urjit R Patel, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, at the Central Vigilance Commission, New Delhi, 20 September 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

It is an accepted norm of organising human societies that with the right to liberty comes good governance, the latter being designed around laws (formal governance) or norms (informal governance) restricting excessive exertions of the right to liberty: Where individual actions are deemed to create adverse spillovers ("negative externalities") on the rest of the society, laws or norms - backed by an enforcement machinery - draw a line as to what is acceptable human behaviour. Governance could be for the society as a whole or an individual firm or entity or a group of entities (e.g., the public sector). An important term we all come across in our functioning, especially in the public sector, is Vigilance, which is the essence of what all of you are attempting to achieve at the Central Vigilance Commission, established in 1964 by the Government of India, to address corruption in the government sector.