Sanak

Corruption has its Intangible roots

People talk of tackling/fighting corruption, only to find themselves engulfed in it that it has become an inevitable part of the system. Media always talk about corruption being so rampant in the society that people always give it positive thumbs up.

This is a small, stupid incident with which I have to live up with during the last four years my college life. During my college, there was a provision for students belonging to SC, ST, OBC to avail a scholarship. The scholarship can go as high as Rs.350000/- per annum while the fee for a year was variable from 38000 to 43000. The only eligibility for the scholarship was that the student should belong to an SC ,ST, OBC( non creamy layer) with an annual family income as less as 50000.

There were around 12-13 friends of mine who were all lined up for the scholarship. These friends of mine were the party throwers, lavish expenders of our class who used to show off their latest gadgets. Though the primary purpose of the scholarship was to provide assistance in their studies like buying stationary as the government had a view that their family condition was hostile for their studies.

Before you label me as a cynic, let us get into a realty check by getting an insight into the background of these guys. First of all a snapshot- of these 12, 3 were the sons of businessmen who had an income of around 800000 per annum, the only difference was that the tax return showed an income of 48000 per annum. Around 5 of them listed their parent’s occupation as a seasonal occupation like farmers, tailors etc which don’t give them more than 45000 a year while the case was not so. Let us take a brief of one of such candidates. This guy had lands of around 30 hectares in his village, and his father was the Zamindar of the village, owned atleast 8 tractors, still his family’s income was less than 50,000 on record, while the reality was that income was way beyond 100000 per month. Now let us look at how the scholarship amount was utilised. First year, he purchased a smart phone which costed around 22000 at that time and rest spent in partying. Second year he bought a laptop, third year the amount was spent on a trip to Goa, while in the final year he bought a tablet PC.

Let us also look at the motive of government behind all this philanthropy. The main aim is to provide monetary assistance to the SC, ST, OBC classes while the selection procedure has already been taken care of. Now this keeps me wondering, as these classes had to pay only half the fees which a general class had to pay and two third in case of OBCs. It was mandatory in our college to pay the fee in not more than two instalments, of these 12 people, most of them used to pay in a single instalment and that too in cash.

Now if we can make a rough estimate, these 12- 14 students from a class of 70, gets a scholarship of 30,000, in 4 years, and then there were 12 departments in the college, equals to 50,40,000. There were around 70 such colleges in the city( as all the pvt colleges were included under the scheme), that takes the amount to 35,28,00,000, and on average there were around 10 cities in the state were such colleges existed that takes the amount to 3,52,80,00,000,that is around 350 crores. This is not an official data but if diluted according to official data that would come to around 200 crores. A whopping 200 crores in a single state, we have 29 states, 6 union territories in our country, where such schemes are in place. And there is no rocket science to understand that this amount is spent on filthy, unnecessary scheme for the non deserving candidates, hence costing the tax payer.

On the contrary, there were some students from the higher class, non reserved candidates, whose family incomes was way less than 50,000 per annum but as he was from a higher class, he was not eligible for any scholarship, or any benefit from the government

Based on such assumptions/facts, whatever we call that, shouldn’t we decide, who needs a financial assistance, the rich brat from a SC/ST/OBC family or a poor chap from higher class family.

I would not blame the government fully for the irregularities because it is bound certain pressures and shortcomings, the inadequate procedures, the Sops, loopholes in the system, corrupt beaurocracy, vote bank politics to name a few. But the real culprits are the students who are taking such non deserved benefits thus devoiding the deserved candidates of benefits. I am not against such benefits or schemes for the disadvantaged group, but I am against the flaws in the scheme. Does this corruption by such students, not equals to the big scams like CWG scam, 2-G Scam, Coalgate scandal etc. Are these students not Insensitive Indians?