Whose spreading the Corruption disease ? – Part 1

Corruption is the most often word in Indian media and press these days, and this is also the most discussed topic by every Indian. It can be termed as a national disease. Now the Common Wealth Games 2010 is the latest hit where Corruption has been flashed.

Lets just think for a minute,

Where does this start?

Who is spreading this deadly disease ?

“Most of us think that corruption happens in government offices and government officials are the people who ask for bribe and we pay them the money that they demand we spread corruption”. If you think I am taking about that, No I am not talking about that. What I am talking is way before the same.

These are lot of other corruption that we agree with and we promote the same. These things happen in our day to day schemes and we are OK with it go ahead with the same. These are more than daylight robbery and we really don’t take any action to stop the same.

Lets get down to the point straight, The soft-drinks that are sold in India they are manufactured @ around less than 3 Rupees per bottle and sold at a price of around 9 – 10 Rupees, that is the MRP price and the vendor adds one more rupees to the MRP and sells it at that cost. No one have any concerns regarding the same isn’t this corruption and the government doesn’t really care about the same.

There are other instances also where we allowed others to rob us, the mobile operators who are offering STD @ Rs 0.5 per minute used to charge us for more than Rs 1. This sudden drop in STD Prices came after DOCOMO came out with a pay per second plan. That means these people who knew that they can offer STD @ Rs 0.5 were making more profit and the TRAI also kept quite. I don’t really think there was any technological advancement which lead to the slashing of the call tariffs.

When Reliance came out with their CDMA phones in early 2000 just for Rs.501 and announced Incoming calls are free, The other networks who were charging for the Incoming calls announced that they will make Incoming calls free and also they will also give SMS free of cost. Then also the cost slashing was because of the competition and it was not because of the technological advancement. This was nothing but Corruption and no one even cared about the same.

Take the other things for example, why do all the malls in the city charge more for tickets on weekends than on weekdays? Just because there is a demand they are hiking the prices? Is that fair? what do you call that a business strategy? Nope. It is just Corruption tell me what else can we call the same?

Then we have the big chain restaurants like Mc Donalds, KFC etcetera why do they charge like hell when the manufacturing cost of the same is not even one fourth of what the selling price is. Then we have the Pizza chain restaurants where the story is the same, why the hell do they charge 4 times the money which is required to create that food ?

Last but not the least we have these so called branded Showrooms Peter England, Allan solly etcetera. Lets talk about this a little, why is a full sleeve shirt Rs. 2999? what does that have extra or worthy of that money? If you call it the brand, let me tell you one thing all these so called brands are all manufactured in INDIA and exported to the countries. The whole US doesn’t have a single dying factory and all these cloths that are sold in the showroom outlets in India are all export rejected qualities but the price way they are still sold like more than four times the actual price.

Let me tell you one more example, this time I will tell you something which you wouldn’t have noted on your own. In Mantri Square basement, we have the Spar outlet where PEPSI can costs Rs. 25. The same Manthri Square on the Top floor there is a PEPSI retail outlet where the same can costs Rs. 50. The worst thing is that the MRP itself reads Rs. 50. The same can and same quantity labeled with 2 different prices and sold in the same place. Then if it is not corruption, Is there a quality difference in the same? Is it legal to sell same quantity stuff of same quality in two different prices or Is it legal to sell two different qualities?

Then I heard every Bangalorean crib about the auto rickshaw drivers asking for more money, did anyone even spoke about the conductors in the BMTC taking changes and skipping tickets. This happens more frequently and that is a big loss to the BMTC. The conductor takes Rs 2 -5, if you are going to travel less than 3 stops whereas the ticket will cost you only Rs 3 -7. Sometimes they take Rs 10 whereas the ticket will cost you Rs 13. This transport system is one of the worst I have ever traveled in.

I never seen any ticket collector checking a BMTC bus for tickets. Lets make a small calculation, lets assume that per trip a conductor skips tickets for ten people charging Rs 2 each, so its Rs 20 per trip (2*10), if that bus makes 25 trips in average per day that means Rs 500 (20 * 25) per bus per day. Lets assume that there are 250 BMTC buses in the city so the loss to BMTC per day is Rs 1,25,000. This is all done with minimal figures taken into account. If the minimum loss per day itself is Rs 1,25,000 that corresponds Rs 37,50,000 per month.

These BMTC conductors doesn’t have a name tag nor there are other means to file complaint about these guys. We all crib about the auto driver who asks Rs 50 more, these conductors are robbing close to 500 per day that means Rs 15,000 per month and they get paid from our tax money. They forget that they are public servants and throw harsh words at you sometimes.

I myself had run into one such incident back there in my native, I gave the conductor Rs. 10 for a ticket of Rs.6. He told to me like ” Every time you guys will get in without change eh?”. I told him “If I had change I would have given you the same”, He had change and he was reluctant to give the same. ” He added ” Ya you guys will never come with change and I am always supposed to give change to you people”, “I said that is what you get paid for, if you have change give the same. If you don’t have change get the same from the bus stand and give it to me. And if you don’t like to give change to people then resign your job and sit at home”

He was furious and was throwing lot of anger on me, “He came like who the hell do you think you are to talk like that?” I replied “See you are a public servant, behave properly with public. if you don’t want to give me change it is fine with me. Give me your name and which depot you are from, I will file a complaint through right to know act”. Then that guy subsided and started saying “See five people have got it and all have given Rs 10, 20, 50 only for the tickets of Rs 6 how can I give change to everyone. You people should also understand.”

This is how these people think, They think like they are taking you for a free ride in their dad’s car. They treat all the commuters like some pests and we don’t really have guts to face them off.

Continue reading this post in Part 2 .