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Reducing backlog
Missed deadlines |
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Look beyond burning bills
Disease of corruption
Bordering on war
“Badal’s water royalty claim is a non-issue”
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Reducing backlog
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government as a ‘responsible and efficient’ litigant is an attractive proposition and the Union Law Minister’s belated announcement of a national policy to reduce the number of pending cases to achieve that end is certainly welcome. While over two crore cases are said to be pending before various courts in the country, Law Minister Veerappa Moily acknowledged that 70 per cent of them involve the government as either the petitioner or the respondent. Government litigation, as the Prime Minister once admitted, crowds out the private citizen from the system. Dr Manmohan Singh had then cited a survey conducted in Karnataka, where 65 per cent of the civil cases involved the government as litigant, sometimes on both sides. Under the new policy, the government would cease to be a ‘compulsive litigant’ and, as far as possible, would refrain from filing appeals against orders, assured the minister. The move will save the government both time and money as surveys reveal that the government actually loses over 90 per cent of the appeals. A close watch would be kept on the implementation of the policy, said the minister and indicated that empowered committees, to be chaired at the national level by the Attorney-General, would be set up to monitor the implementation and fix the accountability of different departments. Though the objective is laudable, the measure is simply not enough. The government officials who fail to apply their mind and squander public money in unnecessary litigation must receive deterrent penalties for the policy to become effective. Government officers, who force citizens into protracted litigation to secure their dues like PF, pension, insurance or compensation, must also be held accountable. The Law Commission has often cited instances of the government pursuing frivolous litigation or as a “matter of prestige”. Often the officials are vindictive and vengeful, arrogant and determined to harass the citizens. For the policy to work, therefore, these busybodies must be made accountable for their action. In its eagerness to reduce court cases, it is hoped, the government will not fall into the trap of letting off the big sharks. As it is, the Indian judiciary and the state are believed to be soft on the rich and the powerful. It would be tragic, therefore, if the really culpable, especially among the elite who bend the rules, are allowed to get away.
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Missed deadlines
The
disturbing gap between India and Bharat refuses to go away. While the former lives in a cocoon of relative prosperity, the latter still exists in a wretched condition. The talk about 8 per cent plus economic growth seems to have no relevance to the lives of those living in the underbelly of India. This ugly fact is put across forthrightly by the country’s status on Millennium Development Goals. India was supposed to halve poverty and extreme hunger by 2015 but is unlikely to do so, with 70 per cent Indians still living below global poverty standards. What makes this failure all the more stark is the fact that neighbouring China is all set to reduce its poverty rate to 5 per cent by 2015, whereas the corresponding rate in India would be as high as 24 per cent. There is improvement no doubt, but it is nowhere near satisfactory. The same story of missed targets is repeated in the cases of other parameters which measure the quality of life of a citizen. The situation is alarming, whether in terms of under-nutrition, child malnutrition, gender inequality, infant mortality and maternal mortality or combating malaria and TB. India is home to a fourth of the world’s poor. The winds of change just do not seem to reach their hovels. It is a matter of shame for the country that Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat fall into the same category as Somalia and Congo in terms of hunger. Official agencies would like everyone to believe that it is all because of over-population, but the reality is that the grim situation has much more to do with the failure of the government to deliver succour to those who need it the most. There is no sustained effort to make investment in basic infrastructure, be it hospitals or schools. Most of the schemes remain on paper. If only these are implemented with some degree of sincerity, results can be dramatic, as it happened in the case of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. But such success stories are an exception. In most other cases, the sarkari babus are happy to make the rich ones happy. The poor are left to fend for themselves.
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Look beyond burning bills
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burning power bills, Punjab farmers have conveyed their resentment to the government. It is their democratic right to protest if government policies hurt their interests. But they should take informed decisions. They have to understand why it is necessary for them as also for every other consumer to pay for power. Agreed, agriculture is no longer a paying occupation. Free power was given to reduce farm production costs by well-meaning, but vote-conscious chief ministers in the past few years. However, this has made the state electricity board as well as the state government almost bankrupt. Lack of resources with the board and the government has hampered additional power generation and the demand-supply gap has widened with each passing year. That power is critical for development is well known. If people in general and farmers in particular suffer power cuts, it is because the populist, extravagant and short-sighted ruling politicians have squandered limited resources on cultivating vote banks instead of building infrastructure to help the state grow. It was out of a desperate need for additional resources as well as to meet the requirements of power reforms and get cheap loans from Central and global agencies that the Badal government started charging farmers for power and irrigation water. Farmers’ protest makes no sense as their power bills, issued twice a year, are to be reimbursed by the government. Secondly, they are paying a fraction of the cost of power. Thirdly, free power leads to its misuse as well as the wastage of precious groundwater. Farmers cannot demand free as well as uninterrupted supply of power. There are many farmers who want to pay for the supply of quality power. Punjab politicians do not look beyond five years. For them winning an election is more important than mobilising resources for funding growth. It is in people’s own interest that they pay for amenities and hold the ruling politicians accountable for every rupee they pay as tax.
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To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary. — Abraham Lincoln
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Corrections and clarifications
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In the Page 1 anchor “Former IGP pleads innocence, secures bail” (The Tribune, June 23), the deck says: Ahlawat says Arvinder sought permission from his boss to marry him. The story, however, doesn’t mention or elaborate this point at all.
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The word Himachal has been misspelt as “Himchal” in the introduction to the lead article on Oped (Page 9, June 23, The Tribune).
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The headline “Dutiful(l) bodies!” (Page 3, June 22, Chandigarh Tribune) fails to convey the gist of the story – of encroachers making the most of lacunae in rules, as both the MC and estate office have not been given complete powers to remove encroachments. Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com. Raj Chengappa |
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Disease of corruption EVEN in the midst of the current rage, recrimination, blame game and damage limitation over the “betrayal of Bhopal” there was at least one other news item that drew attention. The son of the chairman of the Bombay-based Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) and eight others from diverse places had been arrested for leaking the question paper for the all-India recruitment examination to rather petty posts of assistant locomotive pilots and assistant station masters. But such is the state of unemployment in rising India that for 20,000 posts on offer a lakh of aspirants were competing at the Bombay (sorry, Mumbai) centre alone. For the RRB chairman’s son and cohorts this was literally a golden opportunity. For, according to the Central Bureau of Investigation, they had sold the question paper to no fewer than 444 candidates at Rs 3.50 lakh each! But luck seems to have run out on these suckers because soon after the arrests the relevant examination was cancelled. The Bombay RRB chairman was suspended immediately. But by the time the authorities decided to arrest him, too, he had done the usual vanishing trick. Only the most naïve would dismiss this as small beer, compared with the scale of loot in some other sectors. It is part and parcel of an established, and apparently ineradicable, pattern that extends far beyond Bombay or the railways alone. It afflicts all government agencies and organisations where mass recruitment takes place. A retired high railway officer with whom I discussed the scandal, retorted: “Why should the railways alone be honest,” he asked me with mock sternness, “when every recruit to paramilitary forces and indeed to the police in every state has to buy his way in”? This suddenly reminded me that in May last year a massive scam had exploded in the recruitment to the Central Reserve Police Force. The CBI had arrested and produced in a Patna court an inspector-general, two deputy inspector-generals and three battalion commanders of the paramilitary force. The charge against them was that they had extorted from the recruits to their ranks a sum of Rs. 225 crore over a few years. Some time earlier a chairman of the Punjab Public Services Commission had also been apprehended after several crores of rupees in cash were recovered from his residence. His modus operandi allegedly was to collect from every police inspector desirous of becoming deputy superintendent of police Rs. 2.5 lakh. There was a similar tariff for all other recruitments and promotions. And, with regret and reluctance, I must record that, according to sources most sympathetic to the military, tragically the jobs-for-cash contagion has begun to spread to the army recruitment, too. Two initial, if painful, questions arise at this stage. If cash is the only or the main key to recruitment, what happens to merit and suitability and, at one remove, the efficacy of vital national organisations? Secondly, and more importantly, whoever has to pay lakhs of rupees to secure a job, won’t he use whatever opportunity that job offers him to amass at least 10 times that amount? Since the problem is much wider than that of recruitment to the government’s countless branches, let us look at the broader picture. Not long before the railway recruitment scam in Mumbai had come into the open, the startling news of the arrest of the president of the Medical Council of India, Ketan Desai, had burst. He had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 2 crore from a Punjab medical college to give it a year’s extension to run a 100-seat MBBS course. The exact amount of Rs 2 crore, neatly packed in cardboard boxes, was seized when a professor of the college concerned was delivering it to a “middleman”. Dr Desai’s angry and loud denials have yielded place to silence because far too many skeletons have tumbled out of the cupboards of the MCI, the sole controller of medical education until the other day. Alarmed by what had come to light, the government belatedly dissolved the MCI’s executive committee and replaced it by a compact board of governors. Nobody is prepared to explain, however, as to how Dr Desai had been able to run the MCI as a virtual personal fiefdom for so long. There has been a cascade of such cases of egregious corruption in recent times but they are only the proverbial visible tip not of the iceberg but of the glacier. For example, the Postmaster-General of Goa was arrested in Mumbai while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 20 crore. In Bhopal, two relatively junior IAS officers - constituting an enterprising husband-wife team - were also arrested. The cash recovered from their home amounted to Rs 3 crore, and the CBI estimated their total wealth to be Rs 40, an obvious case of assets disproportionate to known sources of income. In New Delhi, a mere police inspector owning assets worth Rs 12 crore was also arrested. But because no charge-sheet was filed against him in 60 days he is out on bail. And this brings me to the incomparable case of Madhu Koda who is alleged to have amassed Rs 4,000 crore (not an amount to be sneezed at) during just two years when this lone independent MLA was the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, courtesy the Congress. Before that he was Mines Minister in the BJP-led ministry, which only proves that the gift of the grab cuts across party lines. If Mr Koda’s case underscores the enormous dimension of amounts involved in alleged graft, it also shows that nothing happens to those in very high positions, no matter how grievous the charges against them. He and his henchmen were arrested more than a year ago. Has anyone heard a word about the progress of this case? The perpetrators of the gargantuan Satyam scam in Andhra were arrested well before Mr Koda. Their prosecution hasn’t begun, nor would it. All such cases routinely disappear in the impenetrable maze that is the politico-bureaucratic-judicial labyrinth. As for A. Raja, Union Minister for Communications, even the most preliminary investigations would not be held into the G-2 Spectrum mega-scam (an estimated loss of revenue Rs 60,000 crore), thanks to the “compulsions” of coalition politics. Is it any surprise then that corruption in India has become a galloping cancer without cure, and that this deadly disease is steadily spreading to every vein and sinew of the
nation?
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Bordering on war The Wagah Border retreat ceremony has changed from being a humble act of bringing the flag down respectfully to a ritual reeking of aggression and enmity. Loudspeakers, stall-keepers, and the ever-growing number of visitors make it seem like nothing short of a spectator sport. The process includes soldiers on each side of the border trying to outdo the other side ferociously as they thump their steps staunchly and robustly. The more the sound made by their feet, the louder the rhythmic applause from the public which is larger in number on the Indian side. While there’s a heightened sense of excitement that one feels being an Indian when the ceremony is going on, there lies a visible veil of hostility when the loudspeaker man asks everybody to cheer and clap louder so as to drown out the other side. It seems like a competition of sorts where the aim doesn’t seem to bring the flag down in earnest admiration but an act of aggressive patriotism. Where does it lead to? And more than that, is it justified that Indians display their patriotism in exactly the Pakistani manner which is not helping in lowering the enmity? Can’t the whole process be friendlier, especially when it provides a rare chance to see from so close the people from across the border who could have been on our side had the inevitable partition not happened years ago. The soldiers performing the act might be friendly with one
another, but the public that goes home after the ceremony is often filledn with negative feelings of patriotism and anger for the other side. Why are we so keen on leaving a sense of opposition and aggression among the people witnessing the whole ceremony when we want to bridge the gap created several years ago by manipulated events? The whole process makes one wonder what’s the aim behind such an act when it could have been done in a more produtive
and positive way. How would the ideology of the two nations ever change if such a practice is being adopted? It’s often the history, geography, a sense of conditioning or the differences that create the tension and everlasting angst between nations but an act that can be controlled and done in a nicer and more humble manner can do a lot more good with a
friendlier foresight than a soured hindsight.
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by Raj Chengappa, Editor-in-Chief — Bhupinder Singh Hooda
Q: You came to power for the second time using controversial means of getting independents to support you. Has that impacted governance? No, that is not much of a problem because basically those who have supported me this time a majority of them are Congressmen. Out of seven Independents, six are basically Congressmen. They contested because they didn’t get the party ticket. I don’t find any difficulty in dealing with them and that is the plus point for the government. Of course, some differences were there. But I have a good majority with almost 53 MLAs now supporting me out of 90. So there is no problem. Q: What are your priorities for the second term? My priority will be inclusive development of the state with a focus on education and employment creation. In the last term my focus was on power because it was needed for development. Unless you have power, you can’t go in for agricultural or industrial development or anything else. When I took over in 2005 the total power generation of Haryana was only 1,587 MW while our total requirement was around 4,200 MW. So we decided to increase the capacity to 5,000 MW more. In 40 years, barely one major plant came up but in the past four years we have set up four new plants. Out of these, four have already started generating 600 MW. The others will start generation soon. By the beginning of the next year, there won’t be any shortage of power as we will be meeting the requirement of the state. Q. So in this term what will be your focus? Although inclusive development is there, my priority is also on water. Water is going to be the main problem in the coming years for us. So there is need for the conservation of water, better use of water. Every single drop of water should be utilized whether it is for irrigation purposes or any other purpose. That is why we are focussing on creating new water bodies so that the water level can come up and my focus is on water in this term. Q: On water you seem to have joined issue with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who is demanding royalty for sharing river waters with Haryana? I have no issues with him. He has raised some issues and wants to make a non-issue an issue because he is going to face elections. It always happens in Punjab. These issues crop up near elections. When Amarinder Singh was in power he abrogated the agreement just because of elections. After that four years passed and Badal said nothing. And now that elections are approaching, he is raising the issue. That is for public consumption only. Haryana is not getting its full share of water because of Punjab. Q: You also mentioned about stopping trucks from Punjab which seemed like a provocative allusion. No, that is being misinterpreted. Both Punjab and Haryana are part of the country. Water is flowing through Punjab and that is within one nation. Water is a national resource. I would even advocate nationalising every drop of water. Q: Since we are on the subject of water, Sukhna lake is drying up. What is Haryana doing to save it? On Sukhna, whatever is needed from Haryana, we will do it. Q: With so many concessions announced before last year’s elections, your state coffers must be empty? Haryana is one of the best states in terms of its financial management. The single parameter for any state in terms of development is the planned budget. In the year 2005, when I took over in my first term the planned budget of Haryana was Rs 2,000 crore. No resources were mobilised for that amount by the previous government. This year I have presented a budget of Rs 18,260 crore. In five years, it is nine times more. In 2005, Punjab’s planned budget was much more than Haryana’s. Now Punjab is lagging behind and Haryana’s planned budget is much more. Q. Coming to the controversy over Khaps, your view seems to be different from that of the Congress high command. You seem to endorse the role of Khaps. The Congress high command is of the same view on Khaps. As far as the Congress is concerned, the Haryana government and I consider a Khap as an informal social organisation just like an NGO. It consists of village elders who don’t belong to any particular caste. Every caste group is represented. If any NGO does well, we welcome it. So the role of Khaps is a different thing from honour killings, which the media is highlighting. Khaps have nothing to do with that. We will follow the law strictly. Q. Do you think there is need for a new law on honour killings? There is a law already for murder. Murder is a murder, whether it is honour killing or anything else. And they are booked under that section. Nobody is allowed to take the law into his own hands. Q: Your government’s handling of the Mirchpur incident has come in for criticism with the situation seeming to have got out of hand. Nothing there went out of hand. An unfortunate incident happened. But it was very well handled. I also went there and we have ensured that rehabilitation was done and compensation paid. Every step is being taken. The police has been posted there and they are satisfied. Normalcy has returned. Q: So why did Rahul Gandhi visit Mirchpur? Rahulji’s visit infused confidence among the victims which was good. Q: Your government is also being charged by the opposition with being corrupt. In fact, they say yours is a government of property dealers! The opposition itself is headed by the biggest property dealer. So he thinks other persons are also the same. That is the problem. When I took over in 2005, so far as the per capita investment is concerned, my state was number 14 among the Indian states. But we are number one now. I don’t claim that corruption has been rooted out but it has been minimised. Q: You are accused of being biased in favour of your home district Rohtak when it comes to development. There is no truth in it. My priority is the inclusive development of Haryana. The Metro has reached Gurgaon and it is going to be there in Faridabad soon. Haryana is going to become an education hub during the next five years. We will create standards equivalent to Oxford University. The YMCA College of Engineering in Faridabad has been upgraded as a University of Science and Technology. The first Defence University is coming up in Gurgaon, The first Central university is coming up in Mahendragarh, a sainik school is coming up in Rewari, an IIM is coming up in Rohtak, the Rajiv Gandhi Education City is coming up in Sonepat. So it is wrong to say that I favour only Rohtak. Q: Gurgaon seems to be deteriorating and is growing haphazardly. Just three days ago, I ordered that roads be handed over to the Municipal Corporation so that they are maintained well. The basic problem before our government is of infrastructure. If you go on to the Delhi-Mehrauli Road there are so many malls; licences were given before my time and now there is no place for parking. There are problems with roads also. So now the new master plan, which the government has passed, will make Gurgaon one of the best cities in the world. Q: But industrially Haryana seems to be lagging. The meltdown at the international level affected our growth but now things are looking up. Haryana has emerged as a favoured destination for industry and as far as per capita investment is concerned, as I said earlier, it is number one. Our industrial policy of 2005 has already made Haryana achieve in four years what it had achieved in the preceding 40 years. Now the HSIIDC has plans to invest over Rs 1,200 corre on land acquisitons and development of infrastructure. We are developing industrial estates at Hisar and Jagadhari. We are developing new IMTs at Faridabad, Rohtak, Kharkoda and Ambala. Q: You are looked upon too much as a gentleman-politician and considered soft apart from allowing bureaucrats to rule. No, this is wrong. I am soft as far as my tongue is concerned but very hard where affairs of the state are concerned. About bureaucrats everybody has his or her own role. Success never comes with an individual’s effort; it is a team work with which we succeed. So, bureaucrats are also part of this team as are ministers and MLAs. Public cooperation is also a component of the team. 
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In a state, where almost every election saw a change in political fortunes, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, 62, created a record of sorts when he became the Chief Minister of Haryana for the second consecutive time in October last year. With the Congress emerging as the single largest party, Hooda controversially cobbled together a majority by wooing Independents. The going has been rough for him since then but Hooda is as cool as ever confidently fielding questions in an interview with Editor-in-Chief Raj Chengappa at the Tribune headquarters in Chandigarh. Excerpts: