union for criminals? - welcome to idiot’s own country
April 12th, 2008
Today there was an interesting news item which caught my attention. The agents who facilitate bribe at the RTO offices in Kerala has a union and a minister (Mons Joseph) is going to inaugurate their annual meeting! If you don’t believe me, check out the news item below. Click for a larger version.
As I have written many times before, RTO offices are one of the worst government offices in terms of corruption. When you go there you are almost hounded by the agents roaming there. They have become so powerful that they have even a minister in their pocket! Guys, what is the use of democracy in such a setup? These corrupt officials are going to get an increase of 40% in their salary! What for? Is there any proposal to improve the efficiency of the government employees? None! As India Today wrote - "There is only carrot, the stick is missing"!
So the bribe agents have started a union. So what next? - "All Kerala Corrupt Officer’s Association" if started can get a lot of members. They can even protest against laws such as "Right To Information" which is promoted by "international monopolies". In future we will have associations such as "All Kerala Rapists Union", "All Kerala Wife Beaters Association", "All Kerala Goonda Union", "State killers association" etc. Who knows, they may even get a minister to inaugurate their union.
It is so easy to find corrupt officers. But no one wants to do anything about it. For example, finding corrupt forest officials is very easy. Just visit their home! You will be surprised at the sandal wood stairs, mahogany made dining table/furniture worth lakhs, giant exotic teak wood furniture etc. Forest officials harass ordinary people who stay near the forest and at the same time collect daily bribe from nearby wood mills. There are also many instances where people were tortured and killed by forest officials.
Take another example - Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB). There is a proposal to bring performance based promotions and to bring professional efficiency to the board. But unions are united in opposing any progressive move. According to them KSEB is already very efficient and is offering unmatched service! Yeah, right! - The standard bribe rate for a sub engineer is Rs. 250 (Knowing the correct bribe rate is very important as too little is of no use and too much is waste).
Now what I like most is this fact - To the rich, corruption is not a problem. If I am earning 2 lakh rupees per month, Rs. 250 is peanuts. But if you are surviving on Rs. 2000 per month it isn’t.
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April 18th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Well, this is the state of affairs across most public offices across the country. I think it is so deeply entrenched that any move to change it will be instantly put down. Nothing much that we as common folk can do. Sure, there will be spurts of protests here and there, but in the end I don’t think there is a possibility of a major shakeup. Cynical view perhaps.