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Governments may change, but scams go on forever
Scams are no longer restricted to financial swindles, and scamsters no longer believe in remaining incognito. Today’s scamsters are “confidence tricksters” (con-men) in the truest, most literal sense of the word: they exploit the confidence of the public, they sell themselves as heroes defending national security, as messiahs bringing relief from flood and famine.
Last year’s floods in North Bihar were one of the worst – rural folk and townspeople alike found their homes and possessions washed away. Certainly, for the poor of North Bihar , that flood was no less than a tsunami. Desperate for relief, people camped in the premises of the District Headquarters. Receiving no response, they gheraoed officials. And, inevitably, some of them fell victim to police bullets since they were treated like a “mob” trying to “loot” the relief! Meanwhile, Patna DM Gautam Goswami got himself a picture on the cover of Time – a young hero who was busy rescuing flood victims in some backward backwater of India .
Thousands of people remain homeless, jobless and desperate in the flood-affected areas of Bihar . There is no count of the number of people who died – not by drowning, but by hunger or disease having survived the flood itself. Goswami siphoned off the relief meant for these people in order to line his pockets – political leaders of various hues, including the then CM Rabri’s brother Sadhu, as well as Santosh Jha who went on to contest from an LJP ticket, also partook of the loot, even as they shed crocodile tears for the flood victims. Don’t Gautam Goswami, Sadhu Yadav and Santosh Jha have blood on their hands? Their crime is not merely that of corruption and venality – it is nothing short of murder. Yet, in Bihar today, a CBI probe is yet to be ordered into the flood relief scam; FIRs are yet to be lodged, while the parents of those who died in police firing fighting for relief have had cases of “rioting” slapped on them.
Similar is the tale in UP. In a State where people die of starvation, and cases have been reported of people selling their blood in exchange for food, officials have indulged in a massive multi-crore PDS scam. Truckloads of foodgrain, recorded to have been dispatched to several areas, never reached the hungry people. Mothers who were promised “nutritious meals” never got a single meal – and babies continue to die of malnutrition and attendant diseases. And those newspaper reporters and activists who unearthed the scams and protested against them have been booked under “Wildlife Act”, “Gangster Act”, “Goonda Act” and so on!
In a nation where hunger is fast acquiring national dimensions, scams relating to foodgrains are a truly national phenomenon. Recently, it was revealed that FCI and PDS officials have been indulging in a massive scam of foodgrains in Arunachal Pradesh. But never has a single official, let alone a Minister or a Chief Minister ever been punished for this cruel, callous profiteering from human hunger and devastation. Dealers in death, they have got away scot-free every time.
Along with the above category of “social justice” scams, there is another extremely profitable area – of “national security” scams. Bofors, Tehelka, Denel … these are the mere tip of the iceberg, no doubt. And, just as the cry of “national security” unites political parties in jingoistic fervour, defence scams too have the remarkable power to unite political rivals.
So we hear about scam after scam; enquiry committees are constituted; those enquiries are brought to a boil from time to time, and charge-sheets are framed to suit political needs – but never is there any indictment of the scamsters. A recent instance of the Phukan Committee enquiry into the Tehelka defence deals, which conveniently gave the former Defence Minister a clean chit. Witness the pattern in the Bofors, the fodder scam, the Taj Corridor affair – where enquiries are nothing but political handles for whichever party happens to be in power. But apart from political posturing and sloganeering against “scam-tainted ministers” of one or the other party, there is tacit consent across political lines on the need to give all scams a decent burial. After all, all the parties have their own glass houses to protect, so naturally they avoid any serious casting of stones at their corrupt counterparts in rival parties.
Just as there is systematic protection of scamsters, there is also a systematic avoidance of all attempts to ensure transparency and public scrutiny. Even the Right to Information Act which was recently passed, also has some serious dilutions – in particular, it does not provide for punishment for those who provide malafide information or destroy information. The fate of the Lokpal Bill is even more telling – first introduced in Parliament in 1968, it was killed repeatedly in session after session of Parliament; now, the existing Lokpal Bill has recently been referred to a Group of Ministers, and is all set to be scuttled yet again!
Is such deep-rooted corruption just a moral crisis that can be resolved at the ethical level alone? Or is it rather a symptom of a ruling system that is insulated from and totally insensitive to the masses of working people in the country? When successive governments have no compunctions about imposing policies that intensify starvation deaths and farmers’ suicides, is it surprising that they siphon off food intended for hungry people? Only greater and more effective genuine democracy and accountability can really be an answer to corruption. – KK
* Crores meant for Bihar flood victims pocketed by bureaucrats and leaders of political parties, including RJD and LJP.
* The main culprit Goswami, the then Patna District Magistrate, was praised as “Asian Hero’ by the Time magazine.
* Rs. 17 crore paid to a company, Baba Satya Sai Industries, with a dubious name similar to a Bihar state sector company, Bihar Small Scale Industries Corporation.
* Loot under bogus accounts – Rs. 37 lakh for stay of flood relief crew, Rs 11 lakh for their snacks while more than 800 drowned and five fell to police bullets in fight for relief.
* Indian Express reveals vital government documents which nail Goswami’s baseless claims.
* Contractor and LJP leader, and a close associate of Sadhu Yadav, Santosh Kumar Jha siphons off huge money meant for the flood-affected.
* Goswami takes up a lucrative post with Sahara Group while his resignation is still pending acceptance by the Bihar Government.
* Bihar Governor Buta Singh fails to accept the CPI(ML) demand for a CBI probe but orders an ineffective probe by the State Vigilance Bureau. Vigilance probe is an eyewash and a cover-up exercise.
Foodgrains Scam
* Foodgrain worth hundreds of crore meant for food-for-work schemes for the poor diverted and sold in the black-market by the scamsters.
* According to initial estimates, foodgrain worth Rs. 15,000 crores could have been diverted from the `Antyodaya Yojana' over the last five years.
* Cases booked on 329 employees and 101 people have been arrested in connection with the scam.
* The Mulayam Government tries to shield the scamsters and refuses to order a CBI probe.
* The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court directed the UP Government to consider ordering a CBI enquiry into the multicrore foodgrain scam in the state.
* Major diversions in Lakhimpur-Kheri, Basti, Gonda, Barabanki and Shahjahanpur districts. Severe crackdown by the Mulayam Singh Government on local CPI(ML) activists who exposed the scam and protested against it.
* In yet another recent scam, it has been revealed that Rs. 98 crore annual allocation meant for nutritious meal scheme for children in anganwadis have been diverted to private pockets.
* Recently, a multi-crore land grab scam in NOIDA has come to light.
* Hundreds of acres of government land have been fraudulently transferred to private parties and even sold back to the government.
* The role of the District Magistrate Neera Yadav is under scanner.
* Commission paid to Indian politicians in the US$3.8 million Denel deal.
* A South African newspaper, Cape Argus, has exposed that there were pay-offs in the Government of India’s deal with the Denel Corporation of South Africa for the purchase of rifles during the previous NDA regime.
* The needle of suspicion points to George Fernandes again.
BEML Scam
* The NDTV has exposed that there was corruption in the purchase of army trucks by a defence production unit, Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML).
* Hundreds of trucks have been purchased from a Checz
Scam in the sale of Centaur Hotel
* The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) alleges irregularities in the privatisation of Juhu Centaur Hotel in Mumbai during the previous NDA regime.
* Arun Shourie’s dubious role exposed by the CAG.
* The hotel was grossly undervalued by the Disinvestment Ministry headed by Arun Shourie before privatisation.
* Arun Shourie had pressurised banks to give a loan of Rs. 19 crore to the buyers.
Scam in Aircrafts Purchase
* Corruption by the UPA Government alleged in the Rs. 30,000 crore aircraft deal with Boeing, the US company.
* The French Ambassador was quoted as saying that, “some factors other than commercial” influenced the purchase of 50 aircraft by the UPA Government from the Boeing Co.
* Airbus Industrie of France also makes some remarks alleging corruption in the Boeing deal.
* The French Ambassador also expressed apprehensions about possible underhand dealings in the proposed purchase of 126 aircraft for the Indian Air Force.
NDA’s ‘ India Shining’ Scam
* The CAG has exposed that the former NDA regime had spent an unauthorised sum of Rs. 62.3 crore on its ‘India Shining’ media blitz just on the eve of last year’s general elections.
* The spending by the government in favour of political parties, the BJP and its allies, was not voted for by the Parliament.
Apart from these there were also many other scams like the case of providing IAF aircraft for personal travel to Justice Phukhan who is enquiring into the Tehelka expose.