Indian bureaucracy

A recent article talks of 'India's socially embedded bureaucratic violence.' That reminded me of my recent experiences with Indian bureaucracy. For a few years, I have been taking interest in an organisation which works on women's welfare and is funded by the government. Generally, the funding is late by an year or two and some of the organisers take loans at the rate of two rupees ( for hundred for one month) or above to get by while waiting for the funds. Sometimes bribes help but the reasons for the delay are not clear except for some bloody mindedness of some of the officials involved. I met recently a.p. Commissioner for women's welfare through an IAS contact from college days. The money was already sent by the central government to the state government and people have already been waiting for months for the funds. The procedures kept changing and after several weeks and requests for information already sent, the sanctioned money was cleared to be sent. Then now for several weeks, the cheques are waiting for the signature of the commissioner. I met the commissioner on October 8 of last year and it is not clear what is causing the delay except bloody mindedness on the part of some of the officials. Long ago when the money was still coming from the central government, some of the organisers were fed up and tried to use RTI to inquire out the delay which just caused further delay. And the organisers resign themselves to the fact that money has to come some time and meanwhile keep borrowing money at high interests.

P.S. Compare this with my recent Australian experience. My pension payments were stopped in December while I was in India. Since I was coming back soon I did not worry but casually wrote to the superannuation organisation without expecting any response and did not check my mail. After coming here I found that they already sent the information with in two days of my asking and the whole matter was settled in two days after I came back. Apparent,y I did not update some needed information after 2016. I still do not what it is and will try to find out one of these days.

P.S.2: This was my Facebook post a few days ago. I learnt yesterday, the central government withdrew the funds because the funds were not distributed in time ( though the central government itself used to delay the funds up to one to two years). I understand that the state dept for women’ welfare has requested for unfreezing the funds. May be there will be some improvements in this case.