Mumbai: How low would a person have to sink to seek a ‘cut’ from the money being handed over to a rape survivor?
Vinod Bhosale, an official from the Women and Child Welfare department, no less, could have the answer to that question. He was caught red-handed trying to extract Rs. 20,000 from a rape survivor to hand over her Rs. 50,000 cheque under a government scheme to aid victims of such crimes.
What’s even worse is that Bhosale is just one of 83 government officials, figuring on a list compiled by the state Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), who were caught red handed and arrested for taking bribes in 2014 from the poorest of the poor to give them the benefits they are entitled to under various government schemes.
The list of shame includes doctors trying to fleece elderly women before giving them spectacles, health officers demanding money to release cheques for constructing toilets and even a school principal, who asked a cook making mid-day meals for children to fork out Rs. 1,500 before releasing her salary cheque. Even poor farmers, many of whom have been driven to suicide because of their financial situation, were not spared.
ACB officials say the details of these cases are meant to give a clearer picture of how the benefits from various government schemes meant for people living below the poverty line either fail to reach them in full or are made available to them after a long delay.
The only silver lining in this sordid tale is that in 2014, the ACB saw a considerable increase in the number of people approaching it to complain.
