Work and work culture are both norms of the past and, the adage ‘work is worship’ does not apply at all to the working of the government. As things stand today, if any citizen gets involved with any part of the Government machinery he has really had it, as, the machinery is rusted through and through. No organ of the Government is in proper working condition.
The defect is in the working of the system or in the system itself is not a matter of concern for the common man. What actually concerns the common man is his frustration whenever he has to deal with the Government for any work of his. When we go to any Department of the Government we find a very interesting but irritating and disturbing scenario. To watch a single letter moving from one table to another just a few feet away is fun and yet depressing.
Letters move from table to table at a snail’s pace and at times they are even hijacked from a table by whom, where to and with what intent all a mystery. The getting lost of important letters is quite a common feature in a Government office the outcome and destination being mostly unknown. A job to be done takes weeks months and even years till, at last, interest in the paper is lost by the one to whom it belongs, and, the matter lost in oblivion.
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The very method of the working of Government is peculiar. A paper comes to the table of a junior clerk or officer concerned. It travels through tables and tables till it reaches the decision making officer. Then, the paper travels down the hierarchy once again and trickles down to the dealing clerk. The clerk again puts a note on it, and the paper again starts on its onward journey. This journey of the paper upwards and downwards is made a number of times, taking each time a few weeks or a few months.
The most interesting thing about this journey of the said paper is that, somewhere during its movement it often gets lost. Now the process of looking for it starts and that also only when the person concerned asks for it. With this rigmarole of a working system, any issue defies being sorted out straight and quick.
The Government is in place to serve the people and, as in the good old days, people holding Government jobs were rightly called Government servants i.e., they were in real earnest meant to serve people. They were given positions perks and environments to enable them to work efficiently in the service of the common man.
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This concept has now been long forgotten and given a beating. In the present day environment, Government servants are masters of the public instead of being there to serve as servants. They have become heirs to immense powers to be used for their own benefit and not to serve the common man. The so-called public servant is in today’s scenario the master of all ceremonies. He can do what he likes, when he likes and as he likes. Needs of the people are absolutely irrelevant for the working of the Government servant of these days.
The Government has three main organs, the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The three organs are expected to work in absolute harmony and coordination of each other. This however is not to be seen at any place and at any level. You may go to any department of any of these three organs of the Government, you will find the same system, the same lethargy, the same disinterest in the common man.
The Legislature has a full session of months to make and pass laws but mostly we find the Legislature involved in their squabbles, and session after session goes without the passage of even one bill.
The Executive refuses to execute any rule or law as, it is also busy buttering its own bread at every level. As for the Judiciary which is supposed to impart justice is neck deep in passing the buck. It is common knowledge that, the judiciary has crores of cases pending in courts. How and why has this situation come to pass? How can now these crores of litigants expect any justice? Probably the Judiciary waits for natural justice to take care of these crores of cases. As time passes litigants will continue to die and the cases get settled by themselves- naturally.
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Oh! what a fine pace and style of justice in the so-called modern world. They are leaving all the justice in the hands of God for HIM to settle matters as and when he deems fit. That will be the ultimate justice. If that be so then why does India need a judiciary at all?
Thus, in a nutshell, the working of the Government in India is even worse than that of a snail. Each rung of the hierarchy of official’s busy finding fault with the other and each individual at every level being busy in carving out a future for himself and his progeny instead of working for the common man for whom the Government exists. The public it seems is nowhere in the scheme of things at the government horizon.