My fellow citizens,
Over the last few weeks, I have read and watched a series of reports about
corruption in the organizing of Commonwealth Games. It has pained me no end.
Some of those things I have tried to explain but what has shocked me is the
demand for my exit. Each day there is a new disclosure and the chorus begins
again. Therefore, I decided to confront the question head on.
Yes, corruption has taken place in holding of the games. Trails of quite a
few scandals lead right up to my door. So I will not deny it. But what is so
surprising about it? What did I do that had not been done before? To see the
outpourings of outrage everywhere, it would appear Indians are seeing
corruption happen for the first time. Come on, let us shed that garb of
innocence.
Please come with me to the collectorate of any of our nearly 450 districts.
Each one presided over by an IAS officer, the best and the brightest among
us. Here you find people in their thousands waiting for such commonplace
things as domicile and caste certificates. There are contractors waiting for
permits to mine materials such as boulders and gravel. My contractor friend
tells me it takes 18 approvals to get one permit. Please try to get just one
of them without giving a bribe or using a big name. The same goes for each
certificate.
I could take you to the secretariat of each of our 30-odd states. Or to
ministries in New Delhi where even bigger deals are made. The story will be
repeated on a progressively larger scale. Let us travel to any of the RTO
offices. I dare you to have a vehicle registered or transferred, or just pay
your tax without going through a tout or paying someone. Why, most of us
have driving licences. I ask each one of you to keep your hand on your heart
and ask whether you got it by honestly appearing for a test or gave a small
fee to someone to get it for you.
I also want you remember the last time you were booked for jumping a traffic
signal or wrongly parking your car. Did you quietly pay your fine or tried
to settle the matter with the cop for a lower amount? Please get me a birth
certificate from your local municipal office in a straightforward manner. I
could say the same about courts but for the risk of being hauled up for
contempt. I shall still suggest that you spend a day in the court complex of
any district and check out the exemplary honesty and integrity with which
everybody from peons to lawyers to judges work there. Let us then go to a
PWD or an irrigation department office of your choice and try to find a road
or a dam built with complete honesty. I could go on. But you get the drift,
right?
Somebody has thrown a CAG report on my face. Poor CAG has been writing such
reports by the dozens about every department of every government at every
level. I am yet to discover their utility other than providing particularly
untalented reporters a means to live another day. The toilet paper in my
bathroom finds better use than those reports. It is the same with CVC.
And, ah, the media. How can I forget my friends there? Please ask them about
the increasingly blurred line between advertising and commercials so that
readers do not know what is paid for and what is not. What editorial
integrity do we see when interviews and features on movies appear sweetly
timed with their release? We had the scandal of paid political news during
elections. I am yet to see an editor or an owner hauled over the coals for
that or being asked to demit office.
No, my compatriots, it is not corruption in CWG that bothers you. If that
were the case, you would have lynched every district collector and every RTO
in the country by now. You have long made peace with corruption. You have
become part of it when you could. It is the brazenness and the scale of my
corruption that concerns you. That is the novelty element. If my team had
kept itself limited to taking 10 or 20 per cent cut, you would be looking
the other way. The media would find it boring to report that. What shocks
you is that I paid Rs 9 lakh for hiring a treadmill that could be had for Rs
45,000. If I had done the deal at Rs 50,000 you would be OK with it. You do
not mind people crossing the line. You mind them crossing it too openly. But
you forget, friends, that once you allow crossing of lines you cannot set
the rules for it. Also, I have only raised the bar here. Citius, Altius,
Fortius. Isn't that what having games is all about? Give me credit for at
least that (though I'd prefer cash!).
(The Olympic Games Motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius - Higher, Stronger,
Further).
With all sincerity (or what is left of it amongst us),
Regards,
Suresh Kalmadi
0 comments:
Post a Comment