The Sarkari way of working

Since the childhood days whatever i got to know about the functioning of government department, the perception always have been of inefficient,slow and corrupt way of doing work. As i grow up this view got stronger.

When i was in 4th year of my B-tech in IIT-BHU many of my friends had applied for passport. When the passport verification officer used to come for verification of residential addresses of my friends invariably the competition among them was that who gets it done in how much lower price. For this work which is supposed to be free of cost,officers used to ask for money as if its their right. My fellow mates used to use lot of tantrums to give them as less money as they can,but the matter of the fact is that no one lodged complaint against that officer. This shows that how much apathy we have against the system, at that point of time i was very much sure that there is no use of complaining against that person.

This all negative feelings were their despite the fact that my father has been a very duty bound medical officer throughout his life.May be due to the fact that i have always seen my father as ideal person and rest of the world as practical. And as a kid i always wanted to enter into system and change it drastically .Despite being "insensibly" corrupt this sarkari system has been running since long time and though there have been agitations against corrupt politicians and corrupt system at higher level but rarely we have seen any public agitation against the system. This always made me think.

Few years later i got selected in into civil services and I became part of the most infamous and so called most corrupt and oppressing department of government,POLICE. As the training started i got opportunity to know about the sarkari way more closely as part and parcel of it. Interaction with seniors and most importantly my District Practical training in Bhilwara District and there after posting in Ajmer District of Rajasthan gave me good insight of sarkari way. Though i am still novice to conclusively say anything about the system, but i know i have little changed perception about the system specially police.

The one of the most striking fact which i noticed is that almost at every level Police is understaffed. And those who are there are expected by seniors to do all the work but very few care about the resources available with the subordinates. Also for the kind of work and amount of effort they put in they are underpaid.Even though they don't have option of getting better job due to lack of sufficient jobs in the market and unless and untill you pay sufficiently its not possible to get efficient work.

And then lot of political interference are there in posting transfer etc which makes efficient and honest working irrelevant.One just need good political contact to get postings according to their own wish . Here role of senior officers come , they need to understand that keeping the morale of hardworking and efficient subordinate is much more important than making happy political leaders. Whatever from my little experience and from the seniors i know that political leaders understand situation and if you deny them with proper reason they wont trouble you most of the time. And even if they trouble then being at responsible position senior officers should start taking risk for the sake of the thing that at their position they should take stand of their own.

All these problems should not be used as excuse of being inefficient and corrupt,The point is that there are very evident causes of the effects.And even in these tough situation the sarkari system is still going on.The need of the time is to address these issues else the sarkari way of working may become inefficient to the extent that it may finally break down. I don't think that any one wants our sarkari system to crumble and become non-functioning .