Even as the controversy over the allegation of the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association that a 40% cut has to be paid for government projects continues to rage, the administration has now come under fire from the BJP’s own Hindutva constituency — suppliers of fodder to goshalas and the head of a Lingayat mutt. Having got no response from Animal Husbandry Minister Prabhu Chavan to their complaint that officers were demanding 40% commission for the release of pending payments, the fodder suppliers too, after the contractors, have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention. They have also warned that they would have no option but to follow in the footsteps of Santosh Patil, the contractor from Belagavi who took the extreme step of taking his own life recently, after failing to get payments due to him released despite approaching top leaders in the BJP and the government, including PM Modi. K S Eshwarappa had to resign as Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister as Patil had blamed him for his death. Bribery in government contracts is not new but what’s surprising is that now even religious institutions to which grants have been announced to appease the BJP’s Hindutva constituency are apparently not spared. A prominent Lingayat seer, Dingaleshwar Swamiji, who heads the Balehosur Mutt in Gadag district, has alleged that a 30% commission is sliced away from government grants to religious institutions. Reminiscent of Rajiv Gandhi’s comment in the 1980s that only 15 paise of every rupee released by the government reaches the beneficiary, a comment that PM Modi has often used to mock the Congress on corruption, the seer said, “If an ice-cream is sanctioned in New Delhi or Bengaluru, by the time it reaches North Karnataka, only the stick remains.”
Far from taking such charges seriously, Chief Minister Bommai has resorted to the usual trick -- demand proof from the aggrieved party or the whistleblower themselves, knowing fully well that the corrupt would not have issued receipts for the bribes taken. Whistleblowers, journalists and others can only alert the government to plausible corruption. They do not have the authority, wherewithal or the responsibility to investigate and produce proof of their allegations. It is for the government to order investigations and it should not shy away from it.
That corruption charges are being levelled against the government from virtually every quarter shows how deep and institutionalised the rot is. There is an urgent need to strengthen the Lok Ayukta and free the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) from political shackles as well as for far-reaching administrative reforms to at least bring corruption under control. The entire system needs an overhaul. Bommai should summon the political will to undertake such an exercise.