The only way out seems to be that the people become fully aware of the malady and insist upon signing of an agreement by each minister and the Secretary in charge of the department concerned, declaring a six monthly target of the works to be got done by them and make them fully accountable to the public for any lapses or slippages.

In the present system, the ministers and the bureaucratic heads are not at all accountable for anything whatsoever although they enjoy full administrative and financial powers. Once such a system is introduced, everything else — the selection process, postings, transfers, codes, regulations, accountability for every rupee spent — will automatically fall in place. If people have the will, they can get it done.

JAGIT SINGH, Engineer-in-Chief, (retd), PSEB, SAS Nagar

Bankrupt economy: The Indian economy is in a dismal condition. The situation is so bad that a newly born child in India, instead of getting a gold necklace, inherits an iron chain of debt of Rs 5,000 from the Government of India. Due to the misrule of 54 years by unscrupulous politicians and an indifferent bureaucracy, the external debt on our country has reached a mindboggling figure of Rs 4,87,589 crore If the present trend of borrowing foreign loans continues, the nation may become economically slave to lending countries

The politician-bureaucrat-industrialist nexus has given a severe blow to the economic health of our banks. Presently NPAs are about Rs 62,000 crore. Further India Inc is sitting on Rs 10,000 crore of disputed income tax liabilities.

Wg Cdr GURMAIL SINGH (retd), Chandigarh

Exit polls: Apropos of the news item "Exit polls: scientific or sponsored ?" (Feb. 26), the recent election results have shown that opinion polls as well as exit polls are not scientific. There are strong reasons for the inaccuracy of these polls.

They are conducted by using a sample of the population. But the sample should be sufficient enough to represent the population and the population should be homogeneous. The recent elections were held without a major issue and the voters were not quite enthusiastic (poll percentage being lower). In such a situation, how can we expect the voter to form an opinion in favour of a particular party. But these opinion polls have certainly influenced the opinion of immature voters in favour of a particular party. There is always a chunk of voters who normally poll for the party expected to be in power. These voters, ignorant of the process of conducting opinion polls, want to be on the winning side and so cast their votes accordingly. This factor defeated the purpose of a free and fair poll.

The exit polls, which represent the opinion of voters after casting their vote, can also be not scientific. It was ridiculous to find exit poll results on the electronic channels immediately after the polling was over. If there channels were so fast in declaring the exit poll results, then they must have selected a very small number of samples. In this situation, the results of the exit polls can never be scientific, but sponsored. Moreover, the exit polls/opinions are too influenced by opinion poll predictions.

These highly exaggerated opinion polls have, no doubt, lowered the credibility of the electronic media.