This Eid ( 2 oct 08) when I visited home, I saw a lot of house building activities in my village ( a village about 10 KM from Silchar town). In last two months there has been atleast 20 new houses built and similar number of houses are under construction. In a small village like mine, this appears to be a real estate boom….but in reality this has nothing to do with soaring demand for housings, no one is going to live in those houses!!
The supper highway from Imphal ( through a bridge over the ‘ Barak’) will make a crossing with the superhighway from Mizoram; the crossing is supposedly to be in our village. Some villagers would be uprooted to make way for the national development! Well this may be hard for a those villagers who are living there for generations - guess who is making hay out of it? The Land and Revenue officials advised the villagers to make concrete houses so that they can manipulate official records and get some higher compensation. Well, no advice comes for free! The office needs 20 to 30% of the proposed compensation paid in advance, so that villagers can get a ‘good’ package!! It is an ‘official deal’! The villagers are made to think that this is a win win situation for everyone!! Well, the officials are not saying this to be bribe; in fact no one is saying that – they are just showing the villagers a way to claim more compensation and in return they are taking some ‘service charge’. The brokering the 20-30% deal with the villagers, on behalf of the officials, has become a lucrative career option for many.
Few acres of our (inherited) fertile family land are in the designated highway area. My father currently being almost invalid, my uncle is running from pillars to post to claim the legitimate compensation/ sometimes to get information about the rate of compensation which is meager compared to what has been paid in other parts of the country ( Remember Nandigram, WB? We don’t have a Mamata Banerjee to exploit the situation! ). Nevertless, due to absence of a young male member who would have negotiated with the officials, we had no option but to be ‘happy’ to give the land at the govt offered price. But thanks to the hungry land officials, we cannot get anything until we pay 30% of the amount in advance!!
I feel like an escapist who work for a multinational and give advice to others not to encourage corruption. My father, my uncles are having all the pains for their legitimate money- they can not pay the 30%, they can not pay a good advocate to have an RTI petition filed in the court… I am proud of my father – you really helped innumerable persons to get established…I am proud of my uncle, who served the govt and despite many options to be richer, opted to remain same as before.
Dear reader, if you are looking for a bride, go and try an alliance with anyone working in the Land & Revenue department. It’s possible that you would end up getting gifts comparable to what is given in some of the north-Indian royal marriages. If you are in kidnapping business, get someone from L&R dept, Assam. You would probably get more than what you demanded !
Disclaimer:---
The blogger does not encourage dowry but the above lines are for those who, in any case, would have received some gifts! Kidnapping is also strongly discouraged but this is for those who are already established in this career and do everything with their own risk…. though sharing some ransom might not be discouraged):
The supper highway from Imphal ( through a bridge over the ‘ Barak’) will make a crossing with the superhighway from Mizoram; the crossing is supposedly to be in our village. Some villagers would be uprooted to make way for the national development! Well this may be hard for a those villagers who are living there for generations - guess who is making hay out of it? The Land and Revenue officials advised the villagers to make concrete houses so that they can manipulate official records and get some higher compensation. Well, no advice comes for free! The office needs 20 to 30% of the proposed compensation paid in advance, so that villagers can get a ‘good’ package!! It is an ‘official deal’! The villagers are made to think that this is a win win situation for everyone!! Well, the officials are not saying this to be bribe; in fact no one is saying that – they are just showing the villagers a way to claim more compensation and in return they are taking some ‘service charge’. The brokering the 20-30% deal with the villagers, on behalf of the officials, has become a lucrative career option for many.
Few acres of our (inherited) fertile family land are in the designated highway area. My father currently being almost invalid, my uncle is running from pillars to post to claim the legitimate compensation/ sometimes to get information about the rate of compensation which is meager compared to what has been paid in other parts of the country ( Remember Nandigram, WB? We don’t have a Mamata Banerjee to exploit the situation! ). Nevertless, due to absence of a young male member who would have negotiated with the officials, we had no option but to be ‘happy’ to give the land at the govt offered price. But thanks to the hungry land officials, we cannot get anything until we pay 30% of the amount in advance!!
I feel like an escapist who work for a multinational and give advice to others not to encourage corruption. My father, my uncles are having all the pains for their legitimate money- they can not pay the 30%, they can not pay a good advocate to have an RTI petition filed in the court… I am proud of my father – you really helped innumerable persons to get established…I am proud of my uncle, who served the govt and despite many options to be richer, opted to remain same as before.
Dear reader, if you are looking for a bride, go and try an alliance with anyone working in the Land & Revenue department. It’s possible that you would end up getting gifts comparable to what is given in some of the north-Indian royal marriages. If you are in kidnapping business, get someone from L&R dept, Assam. You would probably get more than what you demanded !
Disclaimer:---
The blogger does not encourage dowry but the above lines are for those who, in any case, would have received some gifts! Kidnapping is also strongly discouraged but this is for those who are already established in this career and do everything with their own risk…. though sharing some ransom might not be discouraged):
2 comments:
Why don't you contact NDTV or any national media to highlight the issues? I think, this needs to be exposed for betterment of the society.
-Naresh
I missed this post, only came here to look for something on the North East. You MUST write more such posts!
This is SO outrageous, but I am not surprised at all, we hear such things all the time.
RTI should not charge ANYTHING, I think ten rupees is the amount you are required to pay.
And I am sure many of our TV channels or Newspaper will be delighted to get such a case, ideally you should contact more than one, because if one of them is bribed to keep their mouth shut, at least the other will make a noise.
I guess there is no point approaching local leaders, they have got their own cut in all this.
Please do write more such posts. And the one other thing that can help - or be the FIRST STEP towards cleaning this mess, is the implementation of Electoral Reforms, including our right to vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE
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