India is a welfare state and Indian constitution highlights it in the Directive Principle of State Policies enshrined in segment ( IV) of the Indian constitution from article 36 to 51. Article 38 lays emphasis on achieving social order for the promotion of the welfare of the people. The welfare state undertakes special welfare measures and has made special provisions for its citizens’ notably for weaker sections. The state enacts legislation on these welfare issues from time to time. Consequently, the welfare state guards and serves the purposes of economic and social well-being of the citizens. Nevertheless, after the globalization and clutch of the privatization process, the different state governments worldwide are working to diminish the State’s welfare role and engage private players, incredibly and gigantic business corporates. In this way the modern time states are approaching to the minimal state. The Indian state also unfolds the economy under the policies of privatization globalization and liberation in 1999. It allows private players for investment in the country in multiple sectors; notwithstanding these measures, the Indian Government promotes many welfare measures and policies for the progress and advancement of Indian citizens. In every sector, India’s successive governments have formulated particular policies for the well-being of citizens. For women and child welfare the Government has introduced programs like Aganwadi, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan now (Samagra Shiksha) maternity regarding health schemes. The Indian state has also taken the welfare measures for the weaker sections of the society, uniquely SCs/ STs, but how much these well-being measures are giving their results at the grass roots level. It is the point of discussion,take the example of India’s two famous Government programs, that MGNREGA and Swachi Bharat Abyan. MGNREGA is a program for the poverty alleviation and earning a livelihood and employs the un- employed persons in the Indian villages. Studies reported those states who implemented the provisions of MGNREGA very well, there this scheme has changed the rural landscape and reduced the rural migration as well. The second is the program of Swachi Bharat, it’s objective is to erase the open defection in the Indian Villages. It has more implications to prevent the citizens from the unhygienic activities created by open defecation. The latter becomes the source of the number of diseases infectious as well as non-infectious. What happens at the grassroots level, in Kashmir, these welfare policies have turned into corruption and become the illegal source of income to certain elite people at the ground level? The corrupt approach of the implementation agencies has ruined the welfare approach. The corruption has become the source of earning for tainted Government officials at the grassroots level. These offices take advantage of lack of awareness among the villagers about the welfare policies. In the observations from the field, it was reported, those villagers who get the toilet under the Swachi Bharat mission had first paid Rs 2000 to Rs 2500 to the Block Development Officials primarily the Village level worker, the junior engineer and the Sarpanch, then the person who gets the toilet. This particular group including the Sarpanch, and some block officials alongwith the local contractor has destroyed the notion of welfare at the local level. If a genuine person who needs toilet or who fulfils Swachi Bharat’s guidelines, he faces hardships in accessing the right giving to him by the government ? Unless he/she does not pay the amount to this cultivated group he is not getting what he deserves as per the policy of the government.. The same is the case of other welfare policies; these policies are not implemented transparently.The same case is with the MGNERAGA. This scheme has become the livelihood for contractors at the grassroots level. Instead of providing work to unemployed persons, the work is assigned to the local small contractors. They are very dearer to the sarpanch and block officials. It is also found that individual village contractors have hijacked the Sarpanches for their own interests. The way the contractor asks him the sarpanch acts accordingly. Some Sarpanches even do the kitchen work of these contractors. This group collects the people’s job cards and uses their bank details, even though the job cardholders don’t do any physical work under the said scheme.
The purpose of the panchayat raj is to deepen democracy, connect the common people with the administration, and empower them to work in the local areas,but in some states and Kashmir, it seems these institutions have deepened the corruption in multiple forms. Sometimes this contractor also sublets the contract to some young people. Overall the people who are reliable on this work are humiliated in the Government offices. The block development officials draw a notable percentage which they are getting from this cultivated group of every village. In this entire process, the welfare schemes’ objectives are diluted, and the benefits are yielded by those who have the reach to this cultivated group and can give them money for executing the working in violation of guidelines. Consequently the assets built under the scheme are crumbling in few months, due to the shortage of quality material used in these works. Even after one month the work starts deteriorating, and in this way, the public money is wasted and goes down the drain. Under the Swachi Bharat, these people are brazenly taking bribe from the people. The government has to investigate the execution process to ensure that no official dares to be part of this corruption process. If anybody rings higher officials, he/she finds them interconnected with each other, and inaction results in frustration of the deserving people. Instead of this, the person who speaks of accountability is targeted and linked with some anti-social or anti-National activates. The cultivated groups hate the people who speak about the accountability, raise questions and seek explanations from the block officials. Now the Jammu and Kashmir is under the direct control of the central government but it seems that ouster of politicians from the system of governance has not change much in Jammu & Kashmir. The corruption at the local level is there, and there is no decline in that process. The people who want to speak about corruption not know whom to ask, because the entire system has been much infected by this intensifying disease of corruption. The media is the only institution to play a critical role by exposing corrupt and corruption. The process of audit kept pending for last more than ten years has to be initiated in Jammu and Kashmir to ensure that corrupt are punished.
(The author is a freelancer. Views are his own) [email protected]