corruption in the movies

  Well Done Abba is a very recent short movie which depicts the reach of corruption in Governance in a realistic manner. Incidentally, the movie also shows one of the ways in which it has become possible to deal with the malaise. The information revealed by invoking the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005, as shown in the movie, enables a village community to seek successful redressal of their grievance. The guilty go unpunished, however. Instead, they are rewarded! A number of wells dug under a scheme of subsidy are found, in the movie, to be physically non-existent but the certificates of completion verifying the fact of availability of water in each well are available. The Govt. of the day, apprehending its fall on account of the ensuing scandal, gets over the problem by having the missing wells dug up, this time properly, by using funds available under a different scheme. And, at the end of the day, those guilty of

> corruption, as stated, not only walked free but were publicly rewarded. This really amounts to adding insult to injury. Now, let me tell you, such acts of serious misdemeanour are routine in today.s governance.

> My first reaction, after witnessing the movie in question, was to try to seek complete details of how the MPLAD funds have been spent by each MP, and, likewise, by each member of the legislative assemblies throughout the country. I am confident that the provisions of the RTI Act can be successfully invoked for this purpose also as each member of a legislature is a public authority with a legislature paid clerk attached to each. Alternatively, the same information can be obtained through the medium of the same Act from the offices of district collectors who are responsible for the execution of works carried out by utilizing these funds. The information to be sought in relation to each work executed by using the said fund should spell out the name and address of the applicant seeking the execution of the work, the nature of the work ( e.g. school, road, pond, etc.), the precise location of the work ( showing village/municipal

> area,block/town, tahsil/police station and the number of plots, etc.) , the period of execution indicating the dates of start and completion of the work, the name of the deptt. and the officers of the deptt. who were responsible for the execution of the work together with the names and designation of the officers who may have inspected and verified the execution of the work. Since detailed guidelines have been issued for the kind of works that can be undertaken with the fund in question, it will also be useful to seek information about the specific guideline covering each work separately. Futhermore, since these funds are often invested in institutions, information should also be gathered about the constitution/composition of the management committees of such institutions to see how many are run and managed by the kith and kin of the legislators. I am sure the details, if correctly supplied, will reveal many interesting features enough for drawing

> lessons for the future. At the same, a large number of black sheep will become identifiable, and, in course of time, it might become possible to weed them out. It is likely to be a long haul but it would be worthwhile to undergo the travails involved in the endeavour. Incidentally, we will then have enough material to prove to the nation and to the courts and also the legislatures that the idea of a FUND cannot and has not worked and should be abandoned in the interest of good governance. In the event of this effort fructifying, the country will succeed in diverting as much as about Rs. 6000 crores annually to planned use for the good of the Indian nation. Come to think of it, the amount is really big, by any standard, even today!

> Before I part with this piece of communication, I find it necessary to recall that the MPLAD scheme was brought into being at a crucial time in the history of free India. The ruling party at the Centre had lost support of the majority. For survival, therefore, adequate number of MPs, not otherwise supportive, were brought into the fold by sheer bribery. Continuing to work in the same spirit, the carrot of MPLAD fund, then given @ Rs. One crore per year was unabashedly handed to the MPs on an abiding basis. It could as well be termed as a self-enrichment scheme. For all we know, the idea might well have been to please even those MPs whose assistance was not then needed for the survival of the Govt. In a way, as I look at it, this nasty fund clearly tends to place a MP in office in a position of undue advantage over a person wishing to contest elections on his own or even with the support of a political party. A MP in

> office is supposed to have had, at his disposal, a huge amount of Rs. 10 crores by using or misusing which he could garner support for himself in the next elections by fair means or foul. Or, the idea then was to let the same set of persons, more or less, occupy seats in Parliament after Parliament and thus perpetuate the leadership which initiated this unholy scheme? The fact that despite the use of such big sums of money in the most discretionary fashion, many legislators still lose elections, in a way, determines the measure of honesty of purpose with which the amount is spent.