Tip of The Iceberg

Orginally I have posted this message to our NGO group in feb 2008. I am posting here under social Engineering. Thanks.

Dear Friends,
Have you seen the tip of the iceberg? Recently I have seen here in a DDA construction work in a Park in Najafgarh, Delhi. I am talking about the corruption and the nexus between Contractor and the govt. engineers and officials who award the contracts. This is a little work and I can imagine with 5000 towns and 5,00,000 villages how big this monster is?

There is a DDA park being developed with the participation and support of local people and govt./DDA. Since past few years each year Rs 27 lakh were spent in the park but till recently when local people took initiative there was no grass/no plant/no permanent water pump. I dont know in which pocket this amount was going? with little inspection i found DDA workers/engineers were also eating part of it.

Till recently this park was used to throw garbage by the local people and a bad smell from it was enough to keep people away. With some people awareness and initiative Govt has alloted more funds to restore this park and grass and 5000 plants have been planted.

Few days ago I found that in a construction of the a room in the park the contractor was using old iron rods(sarias) for roof lanter which he has purchased from kabaddi. It looks like these iron rods were recovered from old lanter and instantly I thought that what will happen if this lanter got cracks after 1-2 year and falls on some children or people in the park. When i asked the labour and then finally the contractor when he came at the site after 1-2 hour he said there is no wrong in using old/kabadi sarias for lanter.

When I asked that whether you have mentioned in your tender that you will use old material then you can go ahead but he kept on saying that DDA officials will pass this and I am not afraid of anyone.

Even when about 10-20 local people gather he was challenging everyone that noone can do anything. Our demand was to replace old saria with the new one for which he has been paid from DDA and this the last day to interfere as next day they would have put lanter with concrete and I dont know whether RTI would be helpful as noone will advice to break the lanter to check the iron rods.

I was highly surprised with the contractor's confidence as he was pretty sure of his contacts or say nexus which start from contractor and goes up from engineers to other officials that he was not afraid of anyone and noone till now has spoken about their work.

Some of his statements I am writing here:-

We are using only 4-5 old sarias. (In reality 100% was old with some new to show for inspection/sample)
There is no difference between new and old Saria (Then why old saria is much cheaper then new one?)
Saria never get older. (Then why there is a lifetime for a lanter which is abt 50-70 yrs)
You dont have any right to speak and his tone was not good.
Finally the contractor agreed to replace the saria but he put the condition that one of from us go on roof and tell which is older we will replace it.
They gave a silly reason that "we dont know the difference between new and old saria".
When I said that if you dont know the difference between new and old saris then why not your license should cancel? His reply was "No one can dare to cancel our license. you forget this"

"We will not stop this you do whatever"
"DDA engineers/officials will pass this"

He was not afraid even when we threatened to complain media and police he threatened and said "You call the Prime Minister, I am not afraid of him."

He accepted that "We got this saria from Kabadi/Scrap with very cheap rate"

He accepted that "We have used this in whole delhi"

The latest status is that the work has stopped and i dont know what they are waiting for. I have taken some pics and also recorded all the above incident.

My purpose of this email is not to put stress on this particular corruption case but just imagine how big this problem is if you think of the development work going all over india.

Now I came to know why people die of hunger in india? Why so many children remain illiterate in villages? Why in so many villages there are no roads, schools and electricity and water?
Why 0.5 billion people still live below poverty line? Why even after spending lakhs of crores by Govt still india is lagging in education, infrastructure and development?

The answer of all Why is the nexus between contractors, Govt. Engineers and officials, MLAs, MPs..................Actually all are involved in this. Upto some extent even You and Me have somewhere and somehow seen this from childhood and supported it by this way or the other. Some said in park that Nonone have complain about it as "Is hamam mein hum sab nange hain"

I have taken advice from Rakesh ji of NyayaBhoomi and Prasun ji of BM Delhi chapter regarding how this problem can be dealt with with a long term solution using RTI or other way.

I remember few cases like last year a Fly Over was collapsed in Hyderabad and many people died? Was it an example of using bad material of something else. I dont know but we can find out.

Few years ago a fly over over Delhi Cantt Railway line was damaged and govt has to spent hundreds of crores just to repair it. Has anyone find out how much is the total life of a flyover and why it damaged in few years? Was it a reason of bad material?

Someone said that "Everyone knows that they mix sand in cement....problem starts when they mix cement in sand". Though it is a harsh joke but it reflects the reality.

With this Email I want to appeal that Be Aware and just check if their is some road, construction, infrastructure work going on near your home which is awarded by govt. and if they are using the good and right material. I know you can file the RTI but just even by inquiring about the work some contractors will stop using bad material.

When Public Awakes....the Devil of Corruption will disappear.

and the thousands of crores of saved money will get back to public in form of some other work.

This is an issue of debate that why people do corruption. One Strong reason is that salary of govt. employees are less. Upto some extent this is true. But the not actually.

It depends on the mentality and Sanskaar of a person. But Yes Salary of Govt employees should increase.

Lets stop the corruption. Lets not support it. Lets all unite to break this nexus, where starting from chapdasi to engineer and upto high level and even MLA/MPs everyone commission is fixed.

Lets make a New India, Corruption free India.

Take the first step by just inspecting the work going near your home. If need use RTI.

Have a Nice Journey to Developed India 2020,
Aman Bharat
BM Delhi

"We Have only one Passion, the Rise of a Great Nation"
www.bharatudaymission.org