First pay babus salaries, then bribes

[sidmis]

First pay babus salaries, then bribes
Written by ANTARA DEV SEN in The Little Maga zine

IF YOU are not a government servant, you have one more reason to be peeved. (If you are a government servant, move on to the next article.) In an Independence Day gift to itself, the Government of India announced a hefty pay hike for Union government employees, including big fat arrears. Will ordinary mortals like you and me who are not sarkari employees benefit from this? Certainly not. What a bizarre thought! We are the public. We exist solely to pay government servants for services they do not render.

"The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can for the benefit of the other one-third," said Voltaire in the 18th century. We have perfected that art. Our government has devised magical means of squeezing pennies out of the penniless for even the most basic public service. And for such meticulousness, we will have to pay its staff 21 per cent more salary. No, not just from now on — that may look dangerously like an incentive to work. For sarkari servants there must never be any hint of a link between work done and payment received. So the hike was from January 1, 2006.

To pay five million Central employees we have to shell out about Rs 18,000 crores more every year. The arrears add up to almost Rs 30,000 crores. With a 12 per cent inflation rate, we are already perched on our toes to access essential commodities speedily being priced out of reach. The less privileged have sunk deeper into poverty and more are going hungry. This additional expenditure would make life more try ing for ordinary folk. It would probably mean less money for public services, development projects, subsidies and welfare measures. It would also mean more taxes.

Besides, each state would have to struggle to keep pace with this hike so their own employees don't feel cheated. Thousands of crores would be wrung out of us. In effect, there will be a celebration of sarkari servants of all kinds at the cost of the general public.
Of course, better pay for government employees could mean better public services. But not with no accountability and huge corruption. We are an extremely corrupt nation, even if we hide behind Gandhi topis pretending to be shocked at the idea of dishonesty in public life. We know how corruption works, and how to use it. The law-abiding honest citizen is a vanishing species, the system forces you to fall in line. You must grease palms even to claim basic rights. The honest politician is also a vanishing species, especially since he or she is usually not very useful as a public representative. The system has its own channels of nourishment and rejects those who do not water the vines or feed the soil. So the honest politician may earn your respect, but for results you cultivate the dishonest one who nurtures this flourishing garden of secrets.

Last year, we ranked an embarrassing 72 in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index. This year we have slipped further, to 74. Along with China and Russia, we take the cake for bribery. A recent report of Transparency International India revealed that the poorest Indians, those living below the poverty line (BPL), paid almost Rs 900 crores in bribes over just three months to access basic public services like the police, healthcare, electricity, water and rations from the public distribution service (PDS). The police, unsurprisingly, are the most corrupt, followed by those involved with land records and registration. Even to get an electricity connection, or your child admitted to school, or a ration card, or to access the much-touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, you have to bribe officials.

Last year the poorest of the poor were forced to bribe hospital staff with Rs 87 crores to access public health services. About one million households were denied hospital services because they did not pay bribes. And 5.36 million BPL families had to bribe government staff or use contacts to access the PDS. They paid Rs 12 crores in bribes just to get their children into school. They had to bribe officials even to get the BPL card.

The police topped this list of corrupt people, of course. They squeezed Rs 215 crores as bribe from 2.5 million BPL households last year, for routine things like filing a complaint. This only corroborates what we have always known — that the shamelessly corrupt police side with the rich and powerful against the disadvantaged and vulnerable. Atrocities against religious minorities, women, backward classes, lower castes and dalits flourish with their blessings.

Ironically, corruption exploits the poor the most, because they depend on public services; they are not free to choose. And endemic corruption among government employees blocks development projects and poverty alleviation pro grammes.

The more fortunate nod sagely and complain about the Rs 100 they had to press on a traffic cop to dodge a speeding ticket.
When we are neither horrified nor embarrassed by the shameless abuse of the most vulnerable, why would we be shocked by the accusation of corruption in Parliament? The spectacular brandishing of currency notes in the Central Hall of Parliament mortified us only because such public display of corruption is obscene. We accept the overwhelming presence of corruption. Take the absconding Sanjeev Bansal, additional advocate-general of Haryana, charged with attempting to bribe high court judge
Nirmaljit Kaur. Last week, when his assistant was caught delivering Rs 15 lakhs in cash to Justice Kaur's home, Mr Bansal's first response was, uh-oh, mistake! That's an advance on a property deal and meant for someone else. Huge amounts of cash are routine in property deals.

Unfortunately for Mr Bansal, his story was disproved and people accused him of running an unholy nexus of criminals and VIPs involving crores. He fled.

In June, for the first time ever, a former Chief Justice of India was hauled up by the Central Vigilance Commission.

A few years ago, Delhi high court judge Shamit Mukherjee was arrested for corruption. The poison has seeped so deep, that even our judiciary — the strongest pillar of our democracy — is not free of corruption.
Today, bribes are claimed as perks. Lucrative postings are sold to the highest briber, from clerks to cops. Ministries are disbursed like favours according to their profitability.

So will this generous pay hike for government employees reduce corruption? Really want to know? Then slip me a little something under the table…

¦ ANTARA DEV SEN is editor of The Little Maga zine.
She can be contacted at: sen@littlemag.com
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