Beaurocracy and corruption

The current scam of Adarsh society may be a surprise for many but not for people like me who have seen the power centers at Maharashtra Mantralaya from close quarters due to various reasons.

In one of the earlier jobs,I was handling government vertical and practically everyday I used to be at Mantralaya..for some or the other reason.I could see poor common people lining outside the gate for visit passes and big builders directly getting entry to minister's cabins.

The whole system of administration is corrupt.The reason is simple..the electoral politics...there is this vicious cycle which starts from the day a candidate wants to stand for an election.He needs to reach many people within his constituency and also win the election.Hence he needs to spend a lot of money on campaigning and also for "ensuring" that people who vote for "note" are on his side.Now when he gets elected,he needs to recover that money he spent.And how he would earn that money?Simple...a "cut" from every file he signs...but he many a times has no "brains" to prepare those files within boundaries of laws and rules...so who helps him?..yes the great "babus"...administration!

Now as the administration staffed by "best brains" from IAS and IPS cadres need to support the politicians in their wrongdoings..they naturally expect return favours from them.These "poor " babus get "peanuts" in salaries ( ! )..and naturally they can not afford to buy a house in Mumbai..so...they form a cooperative society and apply for a plot to government..and voila...the prime plot gets sanctioned immediately.And also some flats are given to politicians as goodwill gesture!This was a Adarsh society is born!

Now I want to make one thing very clear..normally all these things happen within rules and laws of the land and rarely there are extremities like Adarsh where many rules are flouted.No Babu will do any mistake " on paper".Most of the times the issue becomes of the propriety and of ethics.Like when common men do not get any plots for their houses..how come IAS association gets prime plots?The devil here is in details.State government (Read as "Chief Minister" ) has full authority as per the law to give such government plots to cooperative societies for house building..but there are no clear rules as to how CM needs to scrutinize and approve the application.and hence it has become subjective.

So guys..move over Adarsh scam..there are many projects on Worli sea face,Versova and at Wadala where all Babus and Politicians have built their societies and you and me can do nothing as the issue is of "ethics" and no law has been broken by them.Read this blog post and think..how we are fooled to travel every day from places like Vasai and Kalyan to town and these babus and netas drive 10 minutes to reach home!