Chota Babu Syndrome

I have written earlier on bureaucratic apathy and how it makes life miserable for the common man. This note is for R.K. Laxman’s common man – the man on the street who also faces the same set of problems though in his/her context. Mind you, the problem’s may seem small to you and me but for these people their problems are real and could be the root cause of nightmares and in extreme cases may result in suicide. This is further compounded by the fact that the common man is not educated enough to take on the small time bureaucrat (the chota babu of my blog) and has to suffer untold mental agony at his hands.

This post is because of the article which was reported today on the fisher woman being locked up in a clerks government office because she had the temerity to ask for a Rs. 5 market tax receipt, when in fact she has been paying this daily tax to the Satpati Grampanchayat for years, but had never been provided with a tax receipt. You may well ask why will she want a receipt now? It so happened that the Center recently announced a Konkan package, wherein fisherwomen would get an annual grant of Rs. 3000. Kalpana Tare, the fisherwoman concerned went to the concerned officer and filled the relevant forms and was asked to come with the daily tax receipt and ration card to prove that she was a fishmonger. Now like an enlightened citizen, this lady went to the Grampanchayat’s office to ask for the receipt which in reality should have been a cinch, but the clerk became so angry that he locked up the lady and ranted at the other fishmongers that they too would suffer the same fate if they came asking for receipts. Till reports last came in, the fishmonger had decided to lodge a police complaint against Dayanand Mhatre, the clerk in question.

You can imagine the amount of money the clerk would have collected and pocketed without providing any receipts – Rs. 5 per day, 30 working days (fishmongers do not take holidays) a month means that the clerk made Rs. 150 per month from one person, assuming ten fishmongers then it would be a monthly cash inflow of Rs. 1500 for doing nothing. The government is deprived of its tax, and I can imagine the reason for the anger of Mr. Mhatre – most likely his scheme for whacking the Rs. 3000 grant on behalf of all the fishmongers must have come a cropper. He must have seen Rs 30000disappearing from front of his eyes. You can imagine the rut in which our society has fallen, for people in seats of power to be living like blood suckers, sucking the blood of the less knowledgeable and weaker sections of society, living of those people whom their job is to look after!

The village development officer said there was an altercation between Tare and Mhatre and hence Mhatre locked her up. What was the reason for an altercation – if it was just the question of giving a receipt he should have been doing it since the time the first fishmonger came and handed over Rs. 5 the first time – the very fact that no receipt was issued itself from day one is fishy business (no pun please). The development officer trying to take the side of the clerk proves that he is also hand in glove – one really wonders how any of these government schemes works – when the people in the bureaucracy from high officials to low level clerks think it is their birth right to grab government aid for the needy!

Manmohan Singh and his new cabinet will need to set up an effective monitoring mechanism to ensure that the aid for the needy reaches the targeted audience. Most of the aid dries up before it reaches the target, as it “leaks" from the time the file moves from the Ministers table to the Ministers PA’s table. With every movement of the file the aid amount reduces, so by the time the aid actually is made available to the target audience, there is nothing left in the kitty! If Rahul Gandhi and the young brigade is really keen on seeing a better India, then they have to start using a vacuum cleaner and “washomagic” soap to magically cleanse the bureaucratic conscience in a way that they start doing the job the manner in which they are supposed to do it – that is honestly! If we get honest officers doing their jobs honestly – I truly believe that India could within the next five years become not only a world economic power but also a military power. All we need is some strength of character to be shown by the entire machinery running this country, honesty – like corruption could have a cascading effect, which cold cleanse the entire nation and its psyche. If that happens, believe me we will have government kitties full of tax revenue, as businesses will also run honestly, without the need to generate black money which as it is goes to pay off politicians and bureaucrats. Just give it a thought and make a resolution not to give or take a bribe. When each one of us decides to do it, the numbers gather momentum then we could have that multiplier effect which I mentioned earlier!