Parmanand Pandey, Advocate, Supreme Court (Secretary General IPC)
In Indian society corruption is a deep-rooted phenomenon. The disease of corruption has become chronic and struck its roots deep in society everywhere as to cause nausea. When its concept was incorporated in Indian Constitution by way of an amendment with a vision of democracy at the grass-root level in the footsteps of our well-known and robust ancient institution of Panchayats, it was expected that this new Panchayati Raj system will stem the rot of corruption to a great extent. But unfortunately, on the other hand, it has grown at a bigger scale.
We know even for an election to the post of Gram Pradhan of a village and BDC member at the sub-district level, millions of rupees are routinely spent. Now those who have won the elections of Gram Pradhan are being offered a huge amount of money to vote for any particular BDC candidate in their election. This means that black money is playing a big role in these elections at the Gram Pradhan level as well as the BDC level.
Obviously, those who are investing an enormous amount of money to get elected must have some ideas or plans to recover the invested and even more money through corrupt means. At present, there are many schemes of the government(s), which are being carried out at the local level and give an opportunity to so make money.
However, this is an undeniable fact that there is no scheme, which can be implemented without giving cuts to Pradhans and Village Secretaries. Only a naïve can ask, how can the cuts be offered when the money is directly transferred to their bank accounts? There is no doubt that direct transfer of benefits has reduced the harassment of beneficiaries, but its extent and scale have helped grow the corruption to an unimaginable size.
For example, the housing scheme of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna has immensely helped the poor people to have roofs of their own but those who are assigned to implement it at the ground level openly make money from those beneficiaries by selectively recommending their names and also through the suppliers of building materials meant for those houses. Likewise, money earmarked for the paving of the village roads are not spent in the prescribed manners leading to loopholes for making money. It is very difficult to prevent it when the public representatives and the government employees are found to be hand in gloves.
There is no doubt that Goondaism in Uttar Pradesh has been largely controlled due to the strictness of the Yogi government, but it has to work really very hard to root out or at least bring down the level of corruption due to the complicity of the government employees at the village level Panchayati Raj office bearers. To achieve this, it will be no less than a miracle. And if this miracle happens then only those who have the burning desire to do social service will jump into the electoral fray. Otherwise only such persons whose aim is to make more money and enjoy the leverages of power by the sheer dint of their electoral offices will crowd the electoral arena, as it is prevalent at present.