Poor condition of public services in India

When we think of going to a government office/institute the first thing that comes to our mind is poor infrastructure, manner-less staff, dirty corridors and squalor all around. But do we see the same condition of government offices in countries like Singapore or Dubai?  The answer is no! Every time we visit a government office to get some work done whether it’s your daughter’s driving license from local RTO or your parent’s health issue in a government hospital, we have to be prepared for the hostile behavior of employees and incase we do not want to face this humiliating behavior we are bound to suborn them.

Now why are these employees so addicted to taking bribe for the work they are already being paid (handsome amount) for? And from where do they derive the audacity to be bold enough to ask for it. The reason here is, they are well backed by people sitting at high-up positions. The officers in-charge, the HOD are well aware of every small and big amount (bribe) being taken by the clerks & peons but the reason why they let it happen is their own cut in every amount taken by the ‘support staff’. And somewhere or the other we all know this grubby truth but when the in-charges them selves are responsible for nourishing this system, at some point in time we feel helpless before the system. We are being victimized by this complex structure as we find ourselves in the middle of a chaos and we don’t know whom are we supposed to complain. And this annoyance at times results in a brawl with the babus, which eventually ends with the victim being shown the door to the office.

Even the “Janlokpal andolan” from which we all had high hopes, turned out to be a bubble that burst in no time, leaving things in the same state they were.

So what are we supposed to do now…? That’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves someday or the other. Should we arrange a dharna? Shall we do a sting to get these faces exposed? But we always have this second thought in our minds ‘will it make a difference’? Also, we reiterate to our self “I’m not a politician or a social worker” and we leave it to destiny. We allow wrong to happen to us and to those around us without raising our voice. We are too tolerant and adjust to the atrocities around us. We have a mentality that one man can never make a difference, but let me remind you all that time when Mr. Gandhi was thrown out of the train he was just a common man and that too all alone in a foreign land but it was due to his determination that today we have his photo on every note in our pocket and we call him ‘Father of the Nation’. Its true that ‘revolution can never be brought about in a day’ but there’s always a beginning to a new journey and your nation is waiting for you to be that beginning…do you have the cojones to be that change…?