During the entire course of JACTTO-GEO protests, the public response ranged from lukewarm to middling, with a majority of the commoners struggling to fathom the undercurrent that forced government staff to hit the streets. The public perception was tuned by years of grappling with bureaucracy, battling red-tape and greasing the palms of officials. They could not figure out what the fuss was about, for the question lingered: what more did they want?
The reason for insularity of the common man lay in the many overt and covert cases of graft that trickled down to them through various media outlets. A couple of months before the protests started, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) sleuths swooped down on T Kumar, Municipal Corporation Commissioner of Vellore, accepting a bribe to release payment to a contractor. This at a time when the earning of the official was over a lakh a month. The protests started and the question cropped up again: what more did they want?
The advocates of such actions harp on low pay to brush under the carpet the trespass but activists claim that corruption is so ingrained in the psyche of the officialdom that no revision of salary can cure it. While dismissing the claims of people sitting on the sidelines is easy, when it comes from a person who fought corruption in his official capacity, it only buttresses the magnitude of the problem. N K Velu, retired Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) of DVAC, says that over 95 per cent public servants are corrupt. Velu, the Coimbatore district secretary of the Anti-Corruption Movement, says that not a single government department is blemish free.
Years of experience have enabled Velu to rank the government departments on the basis of their corruption. “The Directorate of Country and Town Planning bags the top slot for corruption, followed by the Income Tax, Corporation and Police departments,” says Velu, adding that no matter how small the business be, officials charge hefty sums to get the work done.
“The money officials earn through bribes is three to four times their salary,” says P Kandasamy, an anti-corruption activist. Shedding light on ‘get and share’ concept, he explained that the system adopted in the government offices ensures that the bribe money is pooled and distributed among the officials based on grade. “As the entire team is corrupt, the public have no recourse,” he said.
M G Devasagayam, a former IAS officer, says the blame of all pervasive corruption lies at the doors of the electorate. “Take sand mining for instance. The State has great resources, which are fast disappearing due to poor governance,” he said.
For M Baskar Babu, State secretary of Tamil Nadu Rural Development Officers Association, it’s a few black sheep that are spoiling the the entire flock. “The instance of corruption has spiked after the introduction of Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). With the existing scheme, we stand to get nothing after retirement. The government employees are worried about their old age, leading to their taking such ill-advised steps to provide for their post-retirement period,” he added.