The report goes to the cabinet secretary. The government will examine the report in a time-bound manner, according to a news report, and thereafter take appropriate action. Note that ``time-bound'' refers to the examination of the report and not to the implementation of its recommendations. After the examination, the report could be pigeonholed; or another committee appointed to look into the feasibility of the recommendations of the report.

The issues raised by the Cora report must be taken up by parliament. It must ask the government why 12 British statutes and 17 permanent wartime ordinancesare there on the books at all; and why several other laws that serve no purpose, according to the report, are in vogue. Parliament must question the rationale for inspections and documentation and push for transparency, the absence of which is the reason for bottom-up corruption.

There can be no clean-up of the administration so long as it can take refuge in the jungle of laws. India is overadministered but undergoverned. The roles of the regulatory authorities need to de clarified to enforce the accountability of the commercial sector. Parliament must press for clarity and take up the recommendations on alternative dispute-resolution mechanism and voluntary arbitration to rescue the judiciary, which has been swamped by mushrooming legal disputes.