No wonder there
have been frequent electricity outages for reasons of defective transformers to
repair which the supply is frequently disrupted. It now transpires that the Additional
General Manager of the Central District for electricity distribution in-charge
of management of transformers was found to have amassed assets worth more than fifteen
crores.
While he was
lining his pockets the system was going to seed. Not too long ago a large
number of transformers are reported to have been bought. One does not know
about their quality; but it is true that outages have continued even after replacing
the old ones.
Looks like, this
state has become a den of the corrupt and the venal. The mother of all scams,
the one relating to the state’s Professional Examination Board and the state Public
Service Commission is already under investigation. Huge amounts changed hands
to manipulate results to enable undeserving candidates to get admissions in
professional institutes and colleges A minister has been put under arrest and
the highest executive of the Board is also behind the bars. Even the chief
minister and his wife have come in for adverse notice for recommending names
for irregular clearance for admission in various professional
institutes/colleges. The latest news is that the whistle blower in the case is
under serious threat and he is not being provided the necessary protection. The
government seems to have developed an aversion for him. It was he who exposed
the massive inter-state scam in which enormous amounts were involved. All kinds
of irregularities, from manipulation of marks to impersonation, seemed to have
been allowed for a price.
Almost every day a new scam surfaces in the
state and these scams are not ordinary ones. It seems all the corrupt people
want to make billions in a jiffy. Even the lowest of officials – a patwari (the
lowest revenue official) to a forest ranger, clerks in municipalities, etc. –
do not lack aspirations. They all amass liquid and solid assets worth crores.
Naturally, the executive engineers or officers of their level or even of even
higher levels aim big. Recently, the IAS couple, Arvind and Tinoo Joshi, were
dismissed from service after having been placed under suspension around five
years ago. The couple is reported to have amassed assets worth 340 crores.
The governance
is lax. It has got to be so when the high and the mighty are involved.
A number of IAS officials have cases running against them. Some have even
become ripe for prosecution but the state government either does not issue
sanction or incurs long delays in doing so. According to law, the senior
officers of principal secretary’s level and above cannot be prosecuted unless
permitted by the government. They are more equal than ordinary mortals. And the
permission seldom comes. How can one expect unscrupulous officers to preside
over their own or their own colleagues’ dismissal? Corrupt and venal thus
continue to run the government.
All this is
happening in a state that is supposedly economically backward. If the amounts
involved in the scams detected in rest of the 29 states, 7 Union Terrtories and
at the Centre are taken together it would surely be a huge amount. There are
states like Maharshtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Jharkhand etc. which are reputed to
be more corrupt than Madhya Pradesh. At the centre alone scams worth hundreds
of thousands crores were reported during the rule of UPA II.
I have talked about only the amounts involved that have been detected in the scams. If all those that have somehow escaped the notice of the
investigative agencies are also accounted for the amount would undoubtedly be
mind-boggling. Besides, tens of billions are floating around unaccounted in the
black economy which, some estimates suggest, is of around 50% of the country’s
GDP which was estimated to be more than US $1 trillion. The tax payers’ moneys
are being siphoned off by few crooked, unscrupulous, perverse and sleazy
people. Remember, in this country even the poorest of poor, who number
millions, have to pay taxes.
No wonder
somebody had once said that “India is rich but Indians are poor”.
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