Greasing palms is business as usual

The profusion of scams — IPLgate, the Common Wealth Games scandal, Adarshgate, the 2G spectrum scam, and many others make it seem like its the scam-busting season. No matter where you go, on the local trains, at the office, and even when people gather for an after office drink, all that they can laugh and talk about is how the politicians have been raking it in.

While it does feel good to see corrupt netas exposed for what they are, does this mean corruption will be reduced? Cosmetics baron Maniklal Mulchand Shah does not think so. “For every scam that comes out, ten others are hidden, and even in the ones that are out in the open, because one of the disgruntled partners-in-crime is talking, a quick cover-up is done so that not all the dirt is out.”

According to him, “corruption is omnipresent and I have given up hoping that I’ll be able to get around without greasing palms. After all, when you are stuck, all you want to do is get your work done and move on in life.”

Entrepreneur Vijayata Gandhi, 21, agrees. This young proprietor of Vijayta Entertainment says it is quite disillusioning to see the wanton corruption all around. “All through your childhood you are lectured on the principles of truth and justice, and then you come out into the real world, and it is everything but that.”

But she feels that for every Kalmadi, Chavan and Spectrum Raja, people’s greed is to be blamed as well. “This greed to get ahead of everyone else in a short span of time, without hard work, the greed to undermine your competitor in any which way, the greed to expand more and more just for the sake of expansion — all this fuels the fire of corruption,” she explains, and adds, “the people ready to pay bribes are as much, if not more, at fault as the ones who take it.”

Most businessmen and entrepreneurs DNA contacted believe that it would be “well-nigh impossible,” to get anywhere without greasing palms even if they stuck to the rules.

Take the case of Vanita Mhatre, 32-year-old middle-class housewife who went through hell to come out of an abusive marriage. For the past one year, she, along with three other women who are looking to become financially self reliant have been trying to run a dabba delivery system. No matter how hard she tries to stay within the ambit of the law, she finds it increasingly tough.

“Every time I visit the Shops & Establishments Department for completing the paper work, I am told of a new requirement. Every trip, I have to wait for four to five hours and yet my work is not done. I got them to write down a checklist of all that is required, in their own handwriting. I submitted everything needed and yet I keep getting bounced from one section to another,” she rues, and adds, “Ultimately, a woman in the department told me during my last visit that I would need to shell out Rs15,000 to get the permit done and unless I paid I would keep getting sent back.”

An aghast Mhatre says, “I don’t have that kind of money. An NGO which works with distressed women has helped me find a place for free till I break even but now it looks like I will have to continue selling pickles and papads door-to-door since I don’t have the permit. Without it, the authorities could raid my premises and confiscate all my stuff since its illegal to run an establishment without the right papers.”  

Maniklal Shah says this is a dilemma with not only first time entrepreneurs like Vanita but also with seasoned old hands. The root of this evil, according to him, is the knowledge that the bureaucrats will not be touched no-matter-what. “Even a factory inspector visiting your unit will have to be kept happy or he may find the most obscure things and make that the reason for withdrawing our permission to run the unit,” points out Shah, who exports cosmetics to the UK and US.

There are, of course, those like G Vijaykumar, chairman of the Seven H group, who feel that things are beginning to change for the better. “But it will take at least a decade or two. Things always seem a lot worse just before they are about to change for the better,” he says. “What can’t be cured has to be endured, I think young entrepreneurs will do well to learn tact. They should be able to work their way around such graft. A little application of mind will create ways to do this.”