Looking through Thane and beyond

It is often said that politicians are heartless and their only motivation to stay on with power is to nurture themselves or prey on the populace, most of the times I denounced such a blanket branding of ‘all’ politicians as crooks. Running a political party is no different than a running a for profit business, though this was not the original intention/goal but the idea of politics it was only used to empower people. The whole government machinery is designed in such a way that it benefits politicians and in most cases it becomes irrelevant whether the corrupt is in ruling or opposition party, state or national party etc.,

The recent loss of lives in Thane Maharastra in a building collapse is yet another telling story. Sacking politicians (corporators) after the mishap, suspending officers and booking cases all are meant for public consumption and the gullibility of public is so strong that they would never be able to see the actual intentions. What can we expect from a crooked class which talks about the urinating dams if no rains? This is generally the attitude of politicians whose only unstated goal in life is to amass wealth and nothing else (emphasis added). Now it seems that no group has a moral plane to ride on when it comes to acting with honesty while dealing with public money?

To the question why individuals need money? The answer is apparent. It is needed to retain the power. The means employed to earn the money is not that significant, unless it is questioned in courts or a media group covers it. If we in lay men terms analyze what are the departments (it is individuals in the department) which are mired with or thrive on this black economy are the departments which interacts/interfaces with public more in a relative basis when compared to other departments. It is plainly assumed that no government dept. is free from corruption or free from corrupt mortals. In my opinion there are more than few departments which would standout and they are common in any/all state/s government/s.

They are:

1.    RTO office – Office which handles vehicle registration and issuing the drivind licenses.

2.    Land Registry/Sub-registrar’s office – Where all land ownership transfer transactions and other related tasks are handled.

3.    Building approval dept – the likes of CMDA in Chennai etc.,

Though few departments are supervised by independent minister or IAS officer etc under state government, few are handled by city corporations too. In our case ie., in Thane it is city corporation. It seems that it has been confirmed that the construction was build in forest land and is a 7 floor storey. The begging question would be then what the heck the watch dogs were doing? Please do not tell me that they had a heavy dose of corruption pills and slept off. In a yet to develop city like Chennai itself when the demand for housing is skyrocketing, we can imagine how it will be in megapolis like Mumbai.

Let us get down to real time scenario. If you are constructing a building, no matter what ie., even if you are doing after acquiring all the due approvals, you will still be intimidated by local corporators/councilors. (Recently CM Jayalalitha’s gag order to her party’s corporators was notable).If there is an illegality is involved, corporators are more than happy to help you (mostly well to do with and high profile builders) to flout the rules and laws, because only in such cases they could extract high fee. If the same construction is involving a high profile builder or constructions company it is a great feast for crooked corporators. They know very well that it is going to be a game of luck, unless and until some structure like the one in Thane is collapsed there would be technically no action, even if there is one that will only be a gimmickry.

We could see that the state government is simply washing off their hands by simply saying that corporation is not under their rule or control. Well! I would say gime a break! When these reckless politicians would act honestly. Then my question is how people friendly and no-nonsense is the approach to either get an approval to construct a building or how easy it is to get a license. Random public audits through NGO’s are the need of the hour on all such pending/rejected/awaiting to be approved plans to pin down the corrupt.

It is time for the Maharashtra public to urinate on corrupt politicians once, because these corrupt politicians have been urinating on them for generations.