Dealing with Corruption

[v1p3r]

You will never know until you try. When I turned 18, my friends said the same thing. I still ventured into the sarkari office, and emerged with a licence, looking slightly incredulous.

My point is, don't advise someone to bribe their way through. There is no way India is going anywhere if we espouse corruption to people ask for advice.

BTW, I have applied for phone connections, licences, passport, paid taxes etc for close to 5 years now. I am yet to pay anything over the stipulated fee.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

You will never know until you try. When I turned 18, my friends said the same thing. I still ventured into the sarkari office, and emerged with a licence, looking slightly incredulous.

I try every time the straight method first. I feel extremely uncomfortable to bribe anybody. For example, I have personally bribed only once, that was 15 years back to a cop who heldup my passport. Unfortunately, I have to deal with the government on a routine basis these days. Thankfully there are consultants (middlemen who have registered office and give receipts) for these things.

Originally Posted by v1p3r

My point is, don't advise someone to bribe their way through. There is no way India is going anywhere if we espouse corruption to people ask for advice.

Only as last resort instead of remaining licenseless.

Originally Posted by v1p3r

BTW, I have applied for phone connections, licences, passport, paid taxes etc for close to 5 years now. I am yet to pay anything over the stipulated fee.

Hope you luck continues forever.

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Thankfully there are consultants (middlemen who have registered office and give receipts) for these things.

How do they manage to do that?!

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

How do they manage to do that?!

That's a whole new topic by itself and definitely would be off-topic here.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

Go take the test like some of us actually do. I did it. I'm surprised to see some guys here advocating illegal means.

Agreed, am a culprit - bottom line was that I did the test all fair and square back in 1981. When I went abroad, licence expired and period lapsed. I had a UK licence on my unexpected return. The AASI guys sorted things out - showed a phtocopy on my UK licence and rest was sorted out. As I had to move to mumbai within a week of my arrival, I had to resort to speedier means. Only moral issue was that I am a qualified driver in terms of experience / driving record

If you are a new driver, doing the test is mandatory - no two ways. I would not have skimped on this.

If I am advocating a quick and dirty means for an NRI to get a licence, it is more to get out of the hassle factor especially when one is more qualified than the RTO inspector themselves.

I do agree with Samurai to take the normal route as much as possible

[2L8uLoose]

That was unwarranted and uncalled comment on both V1p3r as well as our country. Please watch what you say. - Mod Team

[v1p3r]

And then people like you complain that our country is corrupt and going to the dogs.

Also, please watch your tone of voice.

[navin]

v1p3r,

You have been lucky. All you need is to have one expereince and you'll realise that once in a great while you are stuck.

Some years back I was making a business trip from India to Europe (multiple countries). Now my Indian paossport was issued in NYC (as I lived there for many years). But some goofup they (NYC counsulate) renewed my passpoart from 1989 to 1984 (not 1994). No one noticed. I flew to India. Flew to Uk and ack to India untill my passport went for a German visa. They told me to get the passport corrected. Meanwhile I had made a seris of appointments and schedules incl. flight and hotel bookings.

The passport office ran me pillar to post and after about 3 full days of virtually living at the passport office I was still getting no where. Oddly a friend of mine told me he could help and he did. he directd me to an officer who help me get my new passport. The officer did not ask for any money. However the next day when I went to collect my corrected passport the peon asked for Rs. 2000. Now I had my flight the same night. I had spent the better part of 4 days at the passport office. Frustrated I paid him took my passport and left.

Was I doing something wrong?
Was I not entitled to a corrected passport in the frist place?
Was I a criminal who was escaping the law by making this foriegn trip?
What is my goofup and if so did not the Indian and UK govt.s make the same goofup by not noticing that my passport had technically exprired?

[amitoj]

This is unbelievable.
You do realise you could have avoided all this simply by verifying the details on your passport when u got it renewed!!

Anyways, most of the times, its our carelessness which leads to last minute rushes and then we justify our illegal actions by saying that there was no time. There is no difference between this, and waking up late and driving rashly and recklessly to make up the time lost in sleeping. We openly criticise the latter, but we are encouraging the former. Not fair, eh?

Amitoj

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by amitoj

This is unbelievable.
You do realise you could have avoided all this simply by verifying the details on your passport when u got it renewed!!

I am sure he does realise that.

Originally Posted by amitoj

There is no difference between this, and waking up late and driving rashly and recklessly to make up the time lost in sleeping. We openly criticise the latter, but we are encouraging the former. Not fair, eh?
Amitoj

Amitoj, may be naveen picked a wrong example to quote. But in my experience, most of the bribe situation is not due to our mistake.

I'll give you a common example. You apply for a power connection and nothing happens. You visit the office repeatedly and find out that they won't move the file unless palms are greased. Corruption in government offfices is not an individual trait. It is a collective pool, everybody gets their cut, all the way up.

So, what are your options? Go to his boss... Well, he too won't be pleased that you are making trouble. They can invoke one of 100s of rules for blocking your application. What will you do?

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Samurai

You apply for a power connection and nothing happens. You visit the office repeatedly and find out that they won't move the file unless palms are greased. Corruption in government offfices is not an individual trait. It is a collective pool, everybody gets their cut, all the way up.

So, what are your options? Go to his boss...

Samurai, agreed that in some places, its a lot easier to give in and just wish for things to improve (and hope for privatisation, is one such case).

Let me give u another example... i started my career in an indian IT company... and the building we were working in had no power supply connection from the govt. Why? Because the company's owner refused to bribe his way into getting a connection. So instead, the building was fed supply from a set of diesel generators 18 hrs a day, 5 days a week. Whenever the weather was good, we would open the windows and ask for the ACs to be switched off.

The problem is that we are so used to bribing our way through that we have started preferring bribing over taking the normal route and we blatantly advise others also to do the same. This thread is a classic example of this. Instead of asking the thread starter to go stand in a queue, take a test, follow the procedure etc etc., he is being advised to go via a third party that will indirectly grease some palms and deliver him a license at his doorstep, EVEN WHEN THERE IS NO NEED FOR ALL THIS!!!!

Everyone will have some incident or the other where one had to pay a bribe and it could sometimes be out of necessity and sometimes out of sheer laziness. Maybe, though God forbid, eventually v1p3r will also acquire such a story.

Its become difficult to eradicate corruption from the system. And one of the reasons is that its become a mindset now that u have to grease palms to get anything done.

By the way, we are kinda wayyyy off topic now...

Amitoj

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Let me give u another example... i started my career in an indian IT company... and the building we were working in had no power supply connection from the govt. Why? Because the company's owner refused to bribe his way into getting a connection. So instead, the building was fed supply from a set of diesel generators 18 hrs a day, 5 days a week. Whenever the weather was good, we would open the windows and ask for the ACs to be switched off.

That's a noble and deep-pocketed gesture. Not everybody can afford it. Finally what happened, How did you get power connection?

Originally Posted by amitoj

Its become difficult to eradicate corruption from the system. And one of the reasons is that its become a mindset now that u have to grease palms to get anything done.

Amitoj, you have no idea how corrupt these guys are, they have no moral qualm about it, they believe it is their right. In fact it is the other way now. They think it is unprofessional or unethical to do work without getting paid. If the job is too small, they still insist on bribe saying it is the question of principle, they will therefore demand a token bribe. All this for doing perfectly legal stuff with clean records and application.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Samurai

That's a noble and deep-pocketed gesture. Not everybody can afford it. Finally what happened, How did you get power connection?

Not sure By the time i left the company, they were still running on DGs.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Amitoj, you have no idea how corrupt these guys are, they have no moral qualm about it, they believe it is their right. In fact it is the other way now. They think it is unprofessional or unethical to do work without getting paid. If the job is too small, they still insist on bribe saying it is the question of principle, they will therefore demand a token bribe. All this for doing perfectly legal stuff with clean records and application.

lol... token bribe!! I agree its deep rooted... thats why i said "one of the reasons..."

[Steeroid]

What I have noticed so far is:

1. If you dont know the law or the procedures, you're jacked. Be ready to shell out dough. Easiest way out is to get some background info on the procedures and make sure they cant pick a hole in your case. You usually get shafted when you're not on safe ground yourself. I got shafted once because my university got my name on my degree certificate wrong - they made me "tosh" instead of "thosh" - it was my mistake that I didnt get it corrected, thinking that my higher education certificates make the degree certificate irrelevant.

And so it was, until I had to get my graduation certificate attested by the Ministries of HR and Foreign Affairs when I had to apply for residence in one country. Got caught up in the rigmarole and soon realised that I was out of my depth since it was my mistake - a lawyer in the Patiala Court complex advised me to 'invest' some money and he will get it done. What I couldnt do in 3 days of running around was done overnight, spelling mistake or not.

So who's to blame - ME.

2. If you know a bit of the law and can throw around a few rules and regulations in your conversation, they take it that you know the system. You dont get shafted. Do your background work, instead of walking into an office and assuming that they're ready to take up your case - they have millions, therefore why should you be special? Unless you're different and you knwo what to do.

and

3. Sometimes there ARE government servants who go out of their way to help you - the entire system isnt corrupt. You usually get things done if you present yourself and your case well, behave with dignity and respect the work they do. It does work - if you assume that they're all sleazy *******s out to swindle you, THEY WILL.

[navin]

Originally Posted by amitoj

This is unbelievable.
You do realise you could have avoided all this simply by verifying the details on your passport when u got it renewed!!
Amitoj

Oh sure hindsight is always 20-20!

my point was that the bureaucrats that be often have you over a barrel. I had 2 other choices at that stage

a) go to the officer who had helped me (but she was gone for the day)
b) canel all my business meetings in Europe and start over after I got my passport

Ok I made a mistake of not verifying my passport but similarly both the Indian and UK govts allowed me to travel on an "expired" passport come to think of it I even flew back to India from the US on this passport. It was only the contientious Germans who noticed.

Ok I made a mistake but if one does, does one have to run from pillar to post for 4 days to have it corrected esp when there is evidence to prove that it was a simply typographical error. That is the country we live in.

To compare the level of service provided by other Govts. When I was in Taiwan I was pickpocketed and was relieved of my Green card on the way to the airport. Instead of flying on to the US I flew to India. Made a statement at the US Counsul in Mumbai and got me a letter asking the US INS official at NYC to let me in. THe whole process at the US Counsul in Mumbai took 1 hour and I was not even a citizen of their country. No bribes. No pleading. Nothing. Just 1 factual statement.

I can cite many more examples of service I recieved from the Govts of Germany, Denmark, Sinagapore and Switzerland (which BTW are even more responsive than the US).

Do you notice that India is one of the few (and only major country) where it's citizens have to verify their passports on entry. Have you seen this in the EU or US? The idea here is to prove that the Indian Bureaucracy treats their brethern very poorly and wont move unless bribed. Funnily Whites are treated with kids gloves by the same officials.