Recently , the print media reported the arrest of an official working in the legislative assembly at Hyderabad , Andhra Pradesh  , who fell into the net of the Anti Corruption Board [ACB]  ,  based on a tip off  .  The  ACB raided his house and found  unaccounted assets worth approx 3 million US dollars equivalent  and documents pertaining to many apartments , land , not to talk about more than one KG of gold jewelry . I understand the individual started his government job at the lowest rung on an ad hoc vacancy and reportedly worked his way up  currying favor to those who matter or working as a conduit for money laundering . Investigations are still on .

In a democracy , there are agents , gate keepers  and  phantom  middle men   who  live as parasites on the system .  To bend rules or obtain a favor , one has to grease the palms of such people .  They help in moving files ,  breaking red tape or leaking out confidential notes on file  or carry stories from opposite camps in political games .  They are generally faceless people known only to a selected  few  .  They deal  in cash transactions and  create assets for themselves through benami [ ghost] transactions . They do not usually get caught unless given away by hostile agents who wok for a political party  other than the ruling party .

We come across such agents in various government departments dealing with citizen services like issue of ration cards , passports  ,  permits , or deviations to established rules like regularising  unauthorised constructions etc .  At times , officials even employ touts to sell permits or other privileges indirectly to the prospects and collect money  without any tell tale marks .

This “cancer ” in our society needs a surgical operation and for that to happen , the regular channels need to work properly to the satisfaction of the common man .  Electronic transactions , the RTI [ Right to Information Act ] etc can combat this problem to a great extent but we need an ” all hands approach ” to eradicate this malady from our country for ever .


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