ON GREASING PALMS

In the recent months I have often had to face the dilemma of ‘to pay or not to pay’. In the course of buying and developing my tiny farm and farmhouse I have been required to have frequent interactions with minor bureaucracy to seek various clearances.

It starts with registering the purchase. Converting the land use of a tiny bit of the new property. Then getting the house plan approved. Getting power connections- one for single phase for lighting and one for three phase for the borewell. Each of these steps requires supporting documentation that has to pass the scrutiny of layers of clerical staff. Can you imagine how many outstretched palms one has to encounter?

Palms being outstretched is a metaphor. What happens is that clerk begins peering into the supporting documents and asks for some more. Like asking for a ‘no-due’ certification for a yet to come power connection. Or a structural engineer’s certification in a country where even now more than half the population lives in makeshift or improvised housing. Without doubt there are well meaning IAS officers who frame the rules for the good of all. And our clerks are good at giving us good governance!

Often I thought it would be economical to cover the upturned palms with a note or two. When the palms did not withdraw I would summon the heavy hand of high authorities to bludgeon the clerk into abject submission. But no favor comes without a cost. It would entail returning the favor or cashing in accumulated IOUs. We live under a rent collecting system. It is bottom up and top down. There is no such thing as a honest government. Under our well greased system an honest government is one that delivers what has been paid for quickly.

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Notes of Nagesh

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