JOIN USIt is practical to take commission: UP neta
Uttar Pradesh ministers, it seem, have made it a habit to embarrass the chief minister and the party by their irresponsible remarks.
Officials in Kanpur, about 90 kilometers from here, were shocked when Bhagwat Sharan Gangwar, UP minister of state for small industries and export promotion, on Wednesday advised them not to take more than ten per cent commission for executing government schemes and projects.
“Dal mein namak ki tarah commission khao” (the amount of commission should be small, just as one mixes salt in pulses), the minister said.
“I have been receiving complaints of large scale corruption. Confine yourselves to ten per cent commission so that the quality of construction works is not affected,” he further advised.
The minister’s advice came after he expressed serious displeasure over reports of irregularities in the projects’ implementation. Gangwar later justified his remarks by touting his advice as ‘practical’.
“Whatever I said was only practical,” he remarked.
Incidentally, he is not the only minister to have advocated corruption publicly.
Before him, a senior UP minister and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav too had advised the officials to steal but not much.
“You can steal a little if you work hard but do not steal much,” Yadav had said during a meeting of the PWD officials a few months ago.
Raj Kishore Singh, UP minister for horticulture, had earlier threatened to kill officials if they indulged in corrupt practices.
Mulayam Singh Yadav, Samajwadi Party supremo and Akhilesh Yadav have repeatedly asked ministers and MLAs not to make irresponsible statements but their advice has always fallen on deaf ears.