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| India Today's survey highly flawed, Omar's government a flop | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Nov 22: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is very happy these days. He must be patting himself and boasting that he has handed down to the people of the state a great administration that has revolutionized the healthcare system and improved the educational system to the extent no one would have ever expected. He must also be thanking India Today for what it did for reasons best known to its management to create an impression in the corridors of power in New Delhi that Omar Abdullah has delivered despite unrest, violence, shutdowns and curfews in Kashmir and that the Union Government was absolutely wrong in criticizing the Chief Minister for what it called "governance deficit" and "trust deficit." In short, Omar Abdullah must be feeling elated by the India Today's highly misleading survey indicating that the J&K Chief Minister has done wonders despite all odds and that the state under him has achieved what his predecessors could not achieve in the past over 61 years.
The India Today's survey, among other things, says that Jammu and Kashmir, which has been repeatedly described by the Transparency International India and the Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi, as the second most corrupt state in India, is the best in the country terms primary health care facilities and ranks fourth in terms of primary education. It bears recalling that in September 2005, the Transparency International India has come out with a comprehensive survey on corruption and the related issues and it had adjudged J&K as the second most corrupt state in India after Bihar. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was then ruling the state. A month later, the state's accountability commission had actually confirmed the survey and registered more than 100 complaints of corruption and nepotism in a short span of 30 days. Out of these more than 100 complaints, 21 were against ministers, bureaucrats and police officers and all of them walked free. Again in 2009, the Transparency International India dismissed J&K as the second most corrupt state in India and put the Omar Abdullah-led government on the mat.
It is very interesting to note that the people had not appreciated those surveys to the extent they should have. They did appreciate but with a caveat. Their refrain was that "J&K was not the most corrupt state in India and not the second most corrupt state." This was their perception then and even now. It is also interesting to note that even some politicians had then lamented that the "Transparency International India had not done justice to the state by suggesting that it was the second most corrupt state in India." They, like the common people, believed that J&K was the most corrupt state in the country. They continue to hold the same view even today.
There are potent reasons to vouch for what the common people believed in at the time of the publication of the survey conducted by the Transparency International India and the Centre for Media Studies and believe in even today. One can catalogue here innumerable instances to show that people who were financially bankrupt or who lived from hand to mouth became not just multi-millionaire overtime but also constructed palatial houses in the state's posh colonies, in the scenic forest areas and even outside the state.
Corruption was there in the state even before 1996. But it was only after 1996 that the level of corruption broke all the records. Even a casual survey would establish that nearly 90 per cent of the funds placed at the disposal of the state government by the Union Government for undertaking public utility activities and nation-building departments, including education department, have not been spent properly. There is no doubt, according to the suffering people and deprived sections of society, that there "exists a dangerous politician-bureaucrat-police-mafia nexus that has looted the taxpayers' money and grabbled thousands and thousands of acres of the state land, including forest land." The fact of the matter is that the state after 1996 has seen the rise of a new class comprising corrupt elements in the political establishment, in the bureaucracy, in the police department, in the revenue department and so on and in the so-called civil society that has been manipulating everything in its own favour, with the common masses being left to the care of god and anarchy. And, still the India Today survey says that J&K has left other states far behind as far as primary health care and educational facilities are concerned. Perhaps, the surveyors have gone by what one of J&K Chief Ministers said in 2005 and concluded that J&K government is the most efficient. The said Chief Minister had told media persons in New Delhi that "those who are corrupt are efficient and those honest inefficient." (To be continued) |
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