I have always been wondering from past 7/8 yrs...
about the conditions in which the government offices run. The old dilapidated buildings, the crooked and cranky furniture, the turtle speed fans, the grayed out floors, the cracked walls with weared out paints oh no.. with red shower designed corners especially made by the eeiks pan and Gutka chewers..,yaaaks, the overflooded 1990's cupboards, every corner of rooms stuffed with piles of papers.. God knows how old they would be and what they might be holding., even the drinking water is in disappointed state, either the taps/basins are dirtily managed with all marks of spits or stained glasses handled by uncountable number, and why not to forget the filthy toilets.. yucks. they are the most devastating picture of the government offices.
Yes this truely is the appearance of any government office in India no matter you visit the richest or posh City of any state. the government is common everywhere.
Thousands of people visit these offices everyday.. some visit daily. or hundreds of times.. climb the same old darkened staircase, drink the same old teas in small cups kept on some corner of table amongst the files and the same old bribery system prevailing from department to department and the same old faces people working for and with. No change for ages !
How in the world are the officers not tired to sit in the same old wooden chair work on same old wooden table under the same old buzzing fan ?? How?? Oh I can never stand this shit.
The servants working in the offices seem to work only for tea, money and walking from one dept's cabin to other, seriously I have never seen any, any servant cleaning the floor or table or even the dashboard at the entrance. Ghosh how come these people never get affected by Swine Flu or Maleria or Tuberculosis ???
Anyways... we ITians, I think can never bring a BIG CHANGE over here.. no ways.. Who would then want to if people are so adamant to continue the same old boring lifestyle ?
It was some friday when I had to visit one of such boring, hopeless and frustrating Government office. The Town Planning and Development office located in Narayan Peth, Pune.
No idea where it is located. Ofcourse thanks to Google for coming like an angel to guide us every way, thus I found the road to Office.
I left home early by bus to Pune corporation the nearest bus stop from where I could go quickly to the office I thought.
Thanks to the bus driver, that I reached in half an hour to PMC !, kept walking towards the very famous Tulsi baug.. the oldest shopping zone of Pune, just following the Google map.
For the sake of confirmation I asked a shopkeeper which comes just after crossing the bridge joining the PMC and shaniwarwada..locations, who pointed out to a road to narayan peth and like a traveller started walking along the road. As I kept going ahead, I could find only shaniwar peth, and got lost as no sign of any narayan peth aah why does Pune hosts so many Peths... will research some other time
Thanks to the municipal corporation, I found a map showing all the roads to nearby locations and only to my luck confused me even more. Oh God. the map was seriously a puzzle.. bhoolbhoolaiya !
Took some lefts, some rights..
Again confused.. but not afraid.
Asked an old uncle on activa for the directions.. and wow I couldnt believe he actually dropped me very close to the office as the road was really confusing and office far away! this can happen in Pune? I was surprised and happy. No worries he was trustable. Thanks to him.
I had to take the zone certificate of our land which needed an application in predefined template.
Yes and for your information such or any kinda applications are always always present in nearby shop/s with stamps charging anything from 10 - 15 INR.. Free ka kamai..shya..you will never find them in govt offices :-|
I had to buy the form and climb the first floor of the Office. Ohh the board displaying the name of the office was so old so old.. poor board.. it would be bored hanging there for years.
And as defined above the face of any govenrment office, this one was no different.
The whole Pune and nearby regions' town planning and development was managed by only 5 rooms !!!! Yes Whole Pune in 5 rooms ! (would be 10 x 15 each )
One was the cabin for head of the office, the other cabin was assistant and yes both had nameplates being engineers God knows ! you know what I mean ....
Other room had four tables arranged in such a manner that only one person could move around ! Disgusting. How in the world the people work ! Three men and a women.. as usual doing their BAU (business as usual) chatting over some stupid topic and paying no importance to poor citizens standing in Q for their own rights.
I had to fill in the form and attach the 7/12 (saat baara) of my land to the form, get it signed from one of lady sitting in other room and submit the form with charge of 30 INR and m done !
Wait Wait Wait..... its not the end...... theres more.. pathetic scenario...
I went straight to the table of one of the lady and requested her to sign my form and such a tired woman just pointed out to an empty chair :-( to take sign from another lady... expected work of govt officials .. to postpone to delay.. etc.
I didnt move from her table, as I knew anyone from that room could sign the form.
Just in few minutes a known regular person came to same lady for signing two forms, their greeting styles showed they knew each other.. and that lady... just signed on the black and whilte sheets without even verifying..
I gave her a surprised and angry look.. she immediately signed my paper... how guilty she felt for signing the previous papers !! hahaha and gave a lame excuse saying my land was not in her area !
The government officials are not at all helpful. They dont utter a word extra.... !
I submitted the form..and ofcourse the clerk didnt have change ... kept my 10 bucks with him without even saying to wait and take it afterwards or bring some change from outside.. how mean. And i got a receipt stating the certificate would be given on 12th / 13th which falls on next week's tuesday. Now how can I come to Narayan Peth in their time (4.30pm - 5.30pm) to collect it from office ? I couldnt bunk my office..no ways.
I knew there are always possibilities of getting things done in minutes in such offices when you make the money talk. But I hate to pay bribe.. so I was thinking of all words to convince the lady to give me the certificate today itself as next day saturday I had to go to other govt office and the next saturday I had oncall at office!
I asked the clerk outside the lady's office to help me get the document. Oh, he said ! that method has stopped. he meant bribing stopped ! How can this be possible, c'mon not in this century atleast. And even the lady officer was bribe prone ! Bad, very bad.
I was waiting for the small room to be empty as many people/agents were coming to take certificates, maps of their lands, the only two things available in this office !
Observing the room
This room again was small hosting 4 tables only ! And to add more. two ladies, one guy... drawing maps of lands on huge sheets of white cardboard ! I meant HUGE,,, real huge.. on such a small table ! and not to forget the tables covered with old papers. My My... how can one draw maps with minute details of highways and water and railways on such lengthy paper on such small tables ! Imagine the wooden table we had for our teachers in our schools.
Yes this was so pathetic of poorly managed government. The Town Planning office had no big tables, no good colours, no big printers or copier machines. Just one old desktop on a table which sure was useless.
These people have been working for past 10 years in such conjusted rooms on small tables drawing maps manually of WHOLE DISTRICT OF PUNE.............. CAN YOU IMAGINE?????
I came up with all sort of bright ideas of business ! I could manufacture. big LCD/LED screens for such offices all across India to display maps, and big big processing CPUs to process mega mega pixels of maps on computer and a big Storage box to store this data and strong servers/OS to run these apps and strong network to connect whole of India and a big sized copier machine which could photocopy/print/ fax large images of lands and lots of other ideas popping out.. wow such cool it would be.. But would the government be eager to change and become high tech ??
The lunch break... sorry had to wait outside the office. I became so anxious and determined to take the document today itself as I had no other day available to come back to office for it ( and as of today I still havent gone to take the certificate, no time)
After the break thankfully of half hr, I went to lady for the doc, and she simply said come on saturday if not on tuesday, which again was not possible.
Her answering style was also dramatic, "My children have exams on saturday, hmm then I would be in office only, so you can come any time of the day on saturday" ! What ?? what kind of explanation she just gave me ?? ( while the certificate collection time is 4.30 pm - 5.30 pm working days)
anyways..
I thought of asking her to take 100 rupees and give me doc, but hesitated as I never handled such situation wherein I had to pay an officer !
I skipped the idea as I didnt want to pay either.
But I didnt have time Ohh...
I came out of the room and saw an agent sitting on the old wooden bench.
We started talking about the stuff of land and certificates and told him of my situation. He immediately stood and asked me my receipt saying he would request lady and ask how much would she charge.
In he went with a smile, after few minutes came back,,... 100/150 INR... and I get the certificate next day !!
f**k What the hell have I been waiting for ? If I had time to come the very next day why would I pay her. Paying would be worthwhile If I get the doc now itself. The agent too said it wont be possible now. Maybe If I would have given 500/ INR- I would have got it.
But the true spirit of young mind... no corruption, forced me to not pay her.. not pay anything above the govt charge of 30 INR
No I seriously hate corruption... I dont want to get my work done by paying under the table or outside the room no ways....
The document wasnt that urgent... and maybe I could come some day when I would have lot of time to take the certificate...
I left office... with sick frustrating mood as the long wait of three hours went waste ofcourse I got my 10 bucks back (no extra money to be left)
But somewhere deep inside I felt little proud and satisfied for not going on govt track....
Smiles.. .as I walked all the way back from Narayan Peth to PMC, the PMT Bus stop, and this time found some better shortcuts !
