There are many a high earning islanders who flourish on black money or the money earned through corrupt practices even at the level of so called low status wage earners. If one goes by the press news, a peon belonging to KDA (Kanpur Development Authority) owns assets to the tune of 100 crores of rupees. Wherefrom he earned this much of property including cash? Obviously through nefarious means. There could be thousands of such people in the city and adjoining areas. If this man is proceeded against with some drastic punishments, chances of which are only remote in the system that obtains on date, he will use money to win the favour of the authorities that be as a bribe to get out of the trouble. Obviously the huge amount of money will change hands and ultimately it goes in the market where it forms a circle with bad money. Such deals taken in totality become the root cause of undue money responsible for soaring prices and they are of the type which don’t fall in the category of the checks the government plans as a curb on every day growing prices. In fact what may serve the needed purpose doesn’t lie merely in imposing curbs on the traditionally identified areas and what may elicit the desired results is to unearth the deals at much lower a level also like that of a petty peon making money to the tune of more than 100 crores. The case under reference is not a solitary instance as there could be an innumerable lot of them.
Saturday, 26 July 2014
There lie the roots of soaring prices:
Sunday, 6 July 2014
Don’t they deserve a thick thrashing like this?
This is a local news from Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh, India). Kanpur Electricity Supply Administration (KESA) where nothing moves unless you grease their palms sumptuously even for your most rightful routine consumer needs in relation to supply of electricity. Certain engineers and other junior staff from KESA were mercilessly beaten black and blue in two different localities of Kanpur the other day for the reason, as the people say, that they wanted to get obliged with illegal gratifications for attending to the jobs they were otherwise required to do free of any charge. Such incidents are more or less a routine as they occur with quick frequency. More surprising a feature is that despite such a thrashing they get every now and then as from the public they are virtually refusing to refrain themselves from resorting to such an evil practice as if they find it worth in view of the hefty sum of money they earn as bribe. Theirs is an organised gang where even an ordinary line man is able to fetch bribe money in thousands of rupees in a day and in fact it is such an undue earning that contributes miserably to the soaring prices in the local market. Normally the crude thrashing they get off and on from public is something to be discouraged by the people in a civilised society but the common men are left with no option as consumers but to go for it in the absence of any other relief available to them as from the governmental administration. If common man’s plight is any consideration one feels inclined to endorse the treatment they are giving to the hefty money makers by illegitimate means with thrashing and more thrashing.
Tuesday, 13 May 2014
Bribery–a compulsory evil in India:
There are many a departments in India where bribery is a compulsory ritual and nothing moves unless consumers grease their palms with money, worst of them being electricity companies, both in private and public sector, and one of them on the top is KESCO (Kanpur Electricity Supply Company) behaving as broad day robbers. They harass the consumers to the extent that ultimately they are left with no alternative but to relent paying them the amount of bribe so asked for. They have hired gangs to locate the potential victims on some flimsy ground or the other on whose clue the KESCO staff raid the houses so identified, on false grounds in most of the cases. When they come across an opportunity to raid a house they enjoy it like any thing jubilantly moving forward as if they are going on a picnic trip. If the electricity consumer is honest enough not to pay them a penny even as bribe, he is in for a great trouble. They discourage payment of electricity bills in a mode other than cash as it makes underhand dealings more feasible. Rarest of an exception is online payment through credit cards but their site remains most often as inoperable. They also charge much extra in such payments as against the normal practice of discounts on online payments. If the consumer concerned is prepared to grease their palms to their satisfaction, he has no problems to face; if not, it is hell of a torture to him. Corruption in India is so deep rooted that survival of an honest person is immensely impossible. Every thing is easy if dishonest means are resorted to. New government is likely to come up in the mid of this month after elections are over and the people of the country may have to wait for a situation whether it improves on corruption front or worsens further.
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Vendors–Many of them are better placed in a way:
Apparently they are a poor lot earning too meagre an income to manage the sustentation of themselves and their families, but it doesn’t apply to all of them. Many of them are rich enough to compete with those, who are much better placed financially. You move any where in the city, or even in some rural areas, you may hardly come across a single vendor without a mobile phone. The washer man who serves at my house has two sets of mobile phones –one for self and the other one for his wife. I know one Thhela walla who deals in waste material moving from one house to another collecting and purchasing the wastages like worn out utensils, broken furniture, other raddies besides used news papers and old clothes. His school going children, 4 in number, are studying in different English schools in the city with 2 of his sons owning a motor bike each for the purpose. He himself transports the material he collects using a thhela but owns two cars at his house. He owns 3 well built 3 rooms flats locally with 2 of them fetching a monthly rent of 6,000/ each. He has his own godown, a sprawling one, by the side of a park, of course un-authorisedly encroaching the space of the park with almost half of the road in front of it remaining in his use all the time for the purposes of dumping his material including the garbage. He has no dearth of money to oblige the municipal authorites whenever they venture to launch some raid (of course a fake one) on his shop and godown. There are several others like him in the town flourishing in a business what apparently looks like some thing too small and too low. It sounds well if a poor man prospers at his own doing hard labour, but when it comes to adoption of nefarious means like encroachment and bribing, it appears that all are the same, be they rich, or be they a poor lot, on the face of the fact that all the poors are not what they look like.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Case of a sheer witch hunting
In a corruption laden society like we have there are troubles emerging at every step and no consumer can help coming out of them howsoever best he tries. Financed by State Bank of India I own a house in State Bank Colony, Ratanlal Nagar, Kanpur with an electric meter for the last more than three decades. Payments of the relative electricity bills paid regularly without fail there was not even an exception ever on that count. Only some time back it was noticed that the meter reading had gone much low with the relative bill unusually showing too small an amount. Necessary complaint was lodged with the KESCO (Kanpur Electricity Supply Co.Ltd) immediately but there was no action taken by them. When the matter was followed up further they got irritated and a team of theirs barged into my house trying to find some fault or the other attributing the same as if some thing wrong was there at my end itself. Without hearing my family members in the matter they hurriedly prepared a bill for Rs.36,000/ as one time settlement besides the cost of new meter to be paid separately. Necessary cheque had to be given to them of course without prejudice to our version of the explanation.They in fact wanted some gratification (obviously illegal) in terms of money which was denied to them point blank with the result that a few days later they called again raising a further demand of Rs.86,000/by way of arrears as they said. Why arrears is the question as there was already a one time settlement. The moot point remains that all this was happening as they were not obliged with the payment they wanted by way of necessary bribe, a routine culture as they take it. I realise that the job could have been much easier if they were suitably obliged which of course was not done as a matter of conviction. In a country like ours one has to suffer and pay the price for whatever are his convictions.