Millionaire peons and billionaire babus in the land of milk and honey

CORRUPTION IN THE TIME OF ZERO TOLERANCE

NK SINGH

Corruption is a way of life, a mundane subject. Stories of corruption bore people, unless it is juicy enough. Our ears perk up if people complain that their toilets have been “stolen”. We are intrigued by reports of women giving birth thrice in a year, at least in official records, to claim maternity benefits. We get aroused when tax sleuths find an IAS officer sleeping on a pile of notes.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, MP gazab hai. The wonderful State abounds in stories that merit a chuckle. Even the Prime Minister of the country has his favourite repertoire about prosperity of public servants here. Talking about black money last year, he recalled the notorious case of disgraced IAS couple Arvind Joshi and Tinoo Joshi: “When income tax people went to some sarkari babu’s house in MP, they found three crore rupees under his bed.”

Satna Municipal Corporation Commissioner Surendra Kathuria’s arrest on corruption charges this week would, normally, not merit much attention in media. The bribe ---- Rs 12 lakh in cash and gold worth Rs 10 lakh --- was a pittance by Madhya Pradesh’s hallowed standards. The State Administrative Service officer was, actually, as poor as a church mouse in a State which boasts of millionaire peons and billionaire babus. The Lokayukta has recovered from him till now only Rs 15 lakh in cash and property worth Rs one crore.

What set tongues wagging was that the State Government had, a few months ago, given an award to Kathuria for his “excellent service” in the success of Ujjain Simhastha. The government has spent Rs 4,471 crore on making arrangements for Simhastha. Congress has alleged that almost one fourth of the fund found its way to the pockets of corrupt officers.How much was Kathuria’s share is anybody’s guess. The case also shocked people because of the brazenness with which government employee now defend the black sheep among their ranks. Subsequent to Kahturia’s arrest, Satna municipal corporation employees had the temerity to gherao the doctor couple who had complained against him!

They have perfected it to the status of fine arts. In Shyam Benegal’s Well Done Abba, wells are stolen and the protagonist files RTI for its recovery. In a real life take, residents of a Sagar village complained to the police recently that their toilets were stolen. The authorities had “constructed” these toilets under Open Defecation Free scheme and collected money for it.

In an investigative report on ODF scheme, a TV network recently went to several villages of Silwani, part of Sushma  Swaraj’s parliamentary constituency, where panchayats had constructed toilets without commode, without roof and without doors. Is such massive corruption possible without the connivance of top officials? The current year’s budget for ODF and related activities in MP is Rs 1,750 crore.

Another reporter discovered a number of women in health department dossiers who had given birth thrice within one year and collected monetary benefits for institutional delivery.When wheat turned into dirt lying in warehouses of Sehore last year, three official committees failed to unravel the mystery.

No wonder, in MP one could bribe his or her way to medical colleges and also get government jobs. In Vyapam scam politicians, government officials and businessmen ganged up to systematically rig medical admissions and recruitment to government jobs for nearly a decade.

This has brought prosperity, at least to a section of government servants and their masters. It is not uncommon to hear stories of clerks, who get a salary of Rs 4000 per month, having property worth of Rs 10 crore. Recently a fair price shop salesman, who was drawing Rs 1,200 per month, turned out to be a crorepati. In the last five years the Lokayuktaombudsman has discovered at least one dozen multi-millionaire peons and patwaris, the lowest ranking government employee, in the land of milk and honey.

MP is supposed to practice a zero tolerance policy in dealing with corruption. The government has brought several schemes to make the system more transparent and responsive to fight corruption. All officials are supposed to meet people in an open court to deal with their complaints once a week, offices are expected to do public work within stipulated time and government is empowered to confiscate property of corrupt employees.But nothing works.

The scamsters are capable of turning even anti-corruption measures into an opportunity to make more money. Digitisation of land records was aimed at helping land owners, particularly farmers, get out of clutches of corrupt officials of land records and revenue departments. But scamsters turned even that to their advantage. MP is right now investigating a major scandal in which public land worth hundreds of crores was converted into private property, allegedly by fudging land records.

The State Government’s priorities are obvious. The post of Loakayukta has been lying vacant for more than a year now. And the Zero Tolerant Government seems to be in no hurry to fill up the vacancy. That reveals more than all the tall claims the government makes.

(Email: nksexpress@gmail.com. Tweets @nksexpress.)