‘Tout tout go away’! Bihar govt appoints service providers for RTPS to remove middlemen!
Patna: right from the traffic to the passport offices, to mention a few random examples, Bihar has been a dream come true for middlemen of all sorts. These middlemen are so firmly entrenched in the system that it is difficult to separate the official wires and switches from that of the middlemen. The official mechanism over time becomes fully dependent on the middlemen for its daily function and corruption acquires a routine that makes it seem more official than the official way, and even the ‘proper way’ to do things.
In fact, it is possible to claim as a devil’s advocate that the middleman’s job is the best proof and example for the entrepreneurial spirit of the Bihari. The middleman looks out for every new opportunity to find a place for himself, insinuating into the procedures of the officialdom with admirable ease. At times you have to wonder if these professionals are really facilitators rather than agents of corruption, given the slothful pace of the official machinery.
Nevertheless, responding to reports of middlemen and touts taking over the state government’s showpiece law, Right to Public Services Act (RTPS), implemented last August, the state government has decided to outsource 51 services provided under the Act to common service centre or the Vasudha Kendras.
Right after implementing the Act, the government faced problems with middlemen trying to “fleece the common man”, mostly from the villages, for facilitating services within a period stipulated under the Act. People were allegedly forced to pay Rs 200 to Rs 2,000 to a middleman at block offices to expedite application processing. Starting May 1, Vasudha Kendras will take up RTPS applications in panchayats across Nalanda, the home district of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The applications will continue to be looked into by block-level officers, as usual.
Bihar general administration department Principal Secretary Deepak Kumar said, “Once we are through with the pilot project in Nalanda, within 20 days we will outsource RTPS services to 8,471 panchayats across the state.” Kumar added that the common service centre would charge Rs 100 to provide the desired services within prescribed time-limit, in coordination with the block offices.
“Middlemen have been a big obstacle in the implementation of the RTPS with common man often getting trapped,” said Kumar, adding that Vasudha Kendras will have to provide good services to win people’s confidence. The state, which has received 1.35 crore RTPS applications so far, has disposed of 1.25 crore applications, mostly related to caste, income and residence certificates. Last year the state government arrested over four dozen middlemen and also stopped the sale of RTPS applications by private vendors. However, very much in the manner of Ravana’s heads or the wayside encroachment by street vendors, the middlemen keep cropping up over and over again.
The question is why are we unable to make our middlemen redundant? Do we really want them to vanish? In which case how about the extra income that comes in regularly providing a greater sense of security than the monthly salary? This is a case of a tumour turning into a vital organ of the body, and the vital organs going to sleep on a permanent basis!
[Courtesy: The Financial Express]