Corruption, the root of all evil: Part-I

Many years ago a little boy from a middle class family dreamt of doing something in life. He was not sure what he wanted to do and therefore, he was just living to fulfill the dreams of his parents of making him a doctor and not for himself. As the kid grew up he was influenced by his peers, cousins and relatives in making his personal choice, ambition and hobbies. The kid started liking sports especially cricket and played club cricket and under 15 age group tournaments but was forced to give up for studies. By the time the kid is in high school, he develop interest in engineering and started pursuing along with his parents dream. He was happy to get into engineering outside his domicile state and for not getting admission into medicine. He considers himself lucky to get a job after completion of the course away from his home state as he knew that his honest parents will never pay bribe to get a job for him. But his peers were not fortunate like him. I would like to introduce this boy as “AB”.

Awakening from the illusion created in the mind of these school kids “AB” and his friends about the outside world, they faced the reality of life for the first time when they were forced to part with their pocket money by a fourth grade employee in the deputy commissioner’s office. They had to pay the fourth grade employee rupees 10 each to get their certificates attested from the deputy commissioner. This was the beginning of hammering the door of these kids’ innocent mind. The system is so corrupt in the country that even to move a file from one table to another in government offices, a bribe is a must. This is worst in the northeast part of India. The common man follows all procedures and standing instructions by the government bodies and still he is asked for a bribe to get his work done. In most of the cases even after paying the bribe the work is not done. A case in point is “AB’s” friend who cleared the XXX Public Service Commission exam and was all set to become Sales Tax officer but he was asked to pay a bribe of rupees 20 lakhs. His father could manage to pay only rupees 7 lakhs. Therefore, he was not given the appointment letter and even the money paid as bribe was not returned. The second case in point is AB’s friend who cleared the XXX State Electricity Board exam and was among the top 5 in the merit list. Initially, he was asked to pay a bribe of rupees 2 lakhs and then in a couple of weeks the bribe amount was increased to rupees 7 lakhs.

Some people will question why these guys have not approached the state Anti-Corruption Bureau? This is easier said than done. Nobody would like to risk their career when there were many mouths to feed at home. The point here is: 1) Why candidates have to pay bribe to clear the job interview of government departments and why even after getting selected on merit, candidates have to bribe officials to bag the job? 2) When the candidates have paid huge amount as bribe to get appointment letters then why will they not adopt unfair means to recover the lost wealth (money paid as bribe) and give in to the lure of accumulating wealth be it in the income tax dept, PWD, customs, etc? 3) Is it not true that the same trend will continue when these guys will get opportunity to be in the job interview panel? This implies that holding any number of degrees is worthless and does not guarantee a job in today’s scenario.

Continued in Part -II