- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 1971 views
Birth Certificate Stamping for Overseas Travel
- Stamps and Registration
- Stamp Duty
- Paid INR 500
Hi ,
I think I should start from the time when i got this new job which offered me an opportunity to travel to Netherlands.
What i learned from the fellow colleagues was that I need to grease the officials at every step, especially in UP, where I was planning to get a doc stamped.
I thought if my documents (birth Certificate among others) to be stamped are genuine and if I am in no apparent hurry, why would anyone ask for a bribe. I was wrong.
There is only one babu in that office who deals with such applications. He asked me to write an application to the registrar to stamp my birth certificate. Within 10 min i was back to his desk along with the application. He started off with saying why it is not written in Hindi language, and that he'll accept applications only in Hindi. I did that in another 10 mins. He looked at it and asked me to put it on his desk as he was going for chai-pani break. I waited for him for almost 45 mins before he came. He then looked at the application and said ,, ahh ! it should've been a typed application and not simply written by Pen. I then rushed to the typist and got it printed.
He looked at it again and said .. dont you know all such applications are typed on the stamped paper. I was loosing patience now. i asked him why didnt he tell me that earlier . For the reply he said , you guys should also have a taste of hardwork. I complied and got him the application on a stamp paper. By that time it was already 5 and he was about to leave, so he asked me to put it on his desk.
Next day when i reached his office, he was out somewhere, and when he came back , I learned that he hasnt yet added the application to his daily tasks file. I requested him to add it now. He started yelling at me saying, you guys have no patience and that things takes time and are never done so quickly. He then engrossed himself with work. He did ask me to take a 3 photos copies of the application though, which i promptly did. He then called a peon and asked when is the mail leaving. Peon said , it had left already for the day and can now go the next day only. So the 2nd day went in vain.
The third day I reached his office before 10AM and was waited for him to arrieve. When he arrived and saw me , he was ********** off and asked me to leave. I didnt and told him that if he doesnt process, i would need to speak to someone in the head office. He didnt budge. So i went to see the registrar, there was a long queue there as well. waiting for my turn, which came after 45 mins and could finally speak to the Registrar. I told him the story so far. He sounded as if he is hearing this for the first time and was surprised, however when i requested him to do something, He called in his Peon and asked him to tell the babu to get the ball rolling. I went along with this Peon to hear him say to babu. Babu was un-perturbed. I understood now. Its all linked.
He took full 3 days to dispatch the paper to one dept. By that time i started understanding the process. When the doc went to another dept (Municiple corporation) I was already there. Since i knew what was needed, as soon as the Babu saw the application,came to me and straight away asked for Rs.500. I negotiated and paid Rs.200. The file then went back again on the 6th day. THe previous babu took another 3 days to process the file and sent to Delhi , Lucknow home ministry. The people there were little more considerate and understood my need for urgency. They processed the file within few minutes and sent it back to the Ghaziabad which took one day. On the next day when it reached the original babu. he sat on it for another day more without any reason. THe next day, when i asked the stamped doc, he shamelessly asked me Rs.5000/- before he could hand over the doc. I was ********** off and now that the docs were right there I started negotiating bribe with him aloud. He looked around if anyone was hearing our conversation. Noone was.. or rather pretended that they wernt listening. He came done to Rs.2000 , then 1000. I handed a 500 rupee note to him and said get lost.
He took the money and started working as if nothing has happened.