Satyajit Prabhudessai
Corruption exists everywhere in the world. In Europe and America you can see it much less and few cases at higher level, in South America corruption is high. Specially in the third world countries it is very high, due to poor administration, poverty etc. In India corruption has become a part of life. You can see it in every department wherever you go from peon to lower division clerk and from officer to the manager to get your work done you have to offer bribe which is a common phenomena.
People say during the Portuguese time there were no corruption but there was “Sagvaad” that means when someone does your work you return him back with mangoes or local bananas or some homemade sweets but it was not compulsion. Some of the “Esquirao” somewhat like surveyors even extended extra land to ones property in return of “sagvaad” as that time land had no much value. But this is in very rare cases and it is not a direct way of corruption.
Portuguese ruled us in a better way. It was semi dictatorship but no one would dare to do any illegal things, crimes, ask any bribes, robberies etc. One police head constable had to control around 100 people. There was a strict checking on quality and price. There was not much development but whatever was developed was well planned and you can see that even today in excellent conditions. They saved our hills from land slides by growing cashew trees and now you can see hill cutting is done in the name of development.
After liberation specially after 1980’s, corruption started growing slowly and after 90’s it attained very high speed. Can anyone tell me is there a single government department in the state which is not corrupt? People say PWD is the most corrupt but then RTO is not far behind when one pay such a huge bribe to get a job. Some people get a loan from friends so he has to pay it back. This is the beginning of corrupt practices and then it becomes the greed for money. If you look at our political masters see what they were before being MLA’s or Ministers particularly their income and after being in politics for some years see their wealth amassed by them. It is absolutely shocking where this money comes from, absolutely it is not their hard earned money.
