Corruption, the Norm

‘Karnataka is the most corrupt state in India’ said the headline reporting on the study of corruption in different states of India. Interestingly, most people thought that this could not be true as they believed that their own state was the most corrupt!  It was almost as if they were disappointed that their state was not number one. It is indeed a pity that not a single state is free from corruption. Corruption seems to be a fact of life that one had to accept and carry on.

When Keshav built his house which, according to him was constructed with all the conditions laid down by the authorities having been scrupulously adhered to, he did not foresee any difficulty in getting the Completion Report from XUDA. Little did he know about the reality on how matters are resolved. When there was no response to his application even after a couple of months had passed, he met the Assistant Engineer concerned and enquired about the status. He was told that someone would come and take measurements to make sure that conditions were met. He waited and after a couple of days someone called and suggested that they meet somewhere in town to discuss his application. Curious, Keshav met the gentleman at the prescribed venue. He was pleasant enough and after checking up copies of all the records submitted with the application said that he could get the Completion Report in about two weeks’ time. But he said that there was a cost involved. When asked how much, he said that money has to be distributed along the line and that it would cost ₹30,000. Aghast, Keshav asked, ‘Why should I pay when all the conditions have been met?’ The reply he got was shocking. ‘You were allotted land at a subsidized price and do you know that the value of the land now is at least four times the money you paid? Why are you cribbing at paying a measly ₹30000?’ Astounded and not wanting to pay, Keshav decided to keep visiting the office till his job was done. Nothing happened till someone told the Assistant Engineer that Keshav was a distant relative of the State Vigilance Commissioner. He got the report within a few days. Keshav who had not wanted to use relationship for personal gain could not help thinking that even using your connections was a form of corruption.

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Raju was getting impatient that the clearance for the Electrical Substation he had installed in his new factory was not forthcoming in spite of his contractor’s taking care of the engineers and others at the Electricity Board office dealing with connections in the industrial estate where he was building a new, large expansion at considerably larger investment he had undertaken than ever before. For the first time, in view of the size of the project, he had obtained loans from the bank. Machinery purchased against the loans from India and abroad had already been installed. This meant that the interest ticker was on and the longer the delay in starting production meant greater the liabilities he had to bear. Raju was no stranger to corruption and being a pragmatic industrialist knew that any refusal to pay would only mean that it would be impossible to achieve anything as planned. He asked his contractor to invite the engineer concerned to drinks and dinner at the Cosmopolitan Club. When they met, the engineer was forthcoming about what the issue was. A new unwritten rule had been made that any high value installation beyond a certain value had to be passed by the Minister in charge of Electricity. Sure fire way for ministers to make their share. Raju had no other option but to comply and after negotiating the amount to be paid, was able to start production though later than planned. When he was mentioning this to his friend Govind who seemed to have contacts with politicians of various parties, the reply he got was certainly not palatable. ‘Do you know how much politicians have to spend to get elected as MLAs? And do you know how much they have to manipulate by doing all sorts of favours in order to get selected as ministers?’ No wonder they will milk the system as much as they can.’ Govind seemed to believe that it was all justified.

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Madhav’s uncle passed away early in the morning on Sankranti day. Cremation with all the funeral rites had to be carried out during the day after all the relations who wanted to attend could arrive. The problem was getting the Purohits and getting the arrangements made at the crematorium. Madhav contacted his family purohit whether he could come and perform the rituals. The answer was a definite no. For one, he did not perform the Apara Karma of funeral rites and then he was busy with pujas at various places on account of Sankranti being celebrated. He, however, gave the number of Srikanth who was a sort of arranger for funerals which he was engaged in as a business. Madhav could contact Srikanth only after many frustrating attempts. Srikanth, initially was reluctant saying that it was festival day and also that he already had three deaths to attend to. He also said that he had to really search to get the Purohits and the crematorium staff had to be kept happy. Guessing where this was leading to Madhav said that cost was no issue but he had the get the cremation done on the same day. Srikanth said that he would call back and did in fifteen minutes and said that he could get everything done as a package and the cost would be ₹40000. Surprised at the high cost, Madhav pleaded with him to reduce the price and was finally was fixed the price at ₹35000 which was higher than what would be the normal rate. Then it was the question of getting the doctor’s certificate without which the crematorium would not accept the body. Finally, he managed to get his nephew to run around and get a doctor to visit at a much higher than usual cost because of the festival. When the cremation was done, he had to collect the ashes the next day and apply for the Death Certificate from the Corporation. Srikanth said that it would normally take about three weeks but for ₹500 he could ask the crematorium staff to get it in three days. Feeling totally helpless, Madhav had to agree telling himself that he was in a rare situation of a death in the family. Srikanth told him that he was lucky because there were many who had to pay much more.

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Kulkarni’s son Atul was a bright student and Kulkarni had high hopes that he would score much higher than the required marks both in the exams and at the Joint Entrance Examination. Kulkarni had spent considerable sums of money sending Atul to coaching classes and spent a lot of time mentoring and motivating him. Though Atul scored in the near 90% in the college examinations, he was not able to do very well in the JEE. He was left in the dilemma of being given a seat in an engineering college far away from home and also in a branch not of his liking. Kulkarni had no option but to contact a Managing Committee member of a prestigious engineering college in the city. He was told bluntly that there were different rates for different branches with Information and Computer Technology branches the highest closely followed by Mechanical Engineering. Not wanting his son to be away from the family and not wanting anything other than Information & Computer Technology branch, he quietly shelled out ₹1000000 and got his son admitted under the Management quota. Discussing the matter with his classmate Raghav whose son got admission into Medical College on merit, he was told, ‘You are lucky that Atul chose engineering. The rate for Medical seats is beyond imagination running into crores in some cases.

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It is not just the common public which has to suffer the consequences of corruption. Officials in Commercial Taxes Dept. or Police Dept., key government officials are made to pay through their noses for transfers to profitable job locations.

It is a truism to say that one cannot get anything done without bribing. Corruption is the norm.