Fight for your rights

I was finding a topic to write on when a strange headline hit me, it said : The poor pay bribes of over Rs 8,000 million to access public services.

The artice said that : A study on corruption across India reveals that approximately 50 million BPL households paid as much as Rs 8,830 million in bribes in one year to access 11 selected public services. Highest on the corruption list is the police

A recent study, designed and conducted by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) in collaboration with Transparency International India (TII), reveals that the approximately 50 million BPL (below the poverty line) households in India paid as much as Rs 8,830 million in bribes, within one year, to access 11 selected public services. This colossal amount, extracted from the poor, indicates a ruthless cynicism at work within the innards of the State.

Six of the 11 public services covered in the study are ‘need-based’ -- police, banking, housing, forests, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), and land records/registration. The rest are ‘basic services’ -- the Public Distribution System (PDS), health, school education, electricity, and water supply. The 11 services can be ranked as follows, in terms of their corruption count: police (1), land records/registration (2), housing (3), water supply (4), NREGS (5), forests (6), electricity (7), health (8), PDS (9), banking (10), and school education (11). Need-based services, being monopolistic and/or involving asset-creation, rank relatively high on the corruption scale compared to basic services.

Strange it is when we talk of erradication of poverty when the people who are suppose to help the poor and the needy to rise up are the culprits themselves. But if we are a little more vigil about the happenings around us , we can ourselves help in making the system more transparent. We have got so used to the corrupt system that it has become a part of our life. We have just followed the flow and never tried to drift away because its difficult.

We have to be the change to follow the change. Cribbing doesnt help. If there is something that is wrong we must state itrather than ignoring it. The poor and the underpreviliged need someone to look after. It has to be you and me, the urban english speaking middle class.