Read the passage below:
Nannu is a daily wage earner. He lives in Welcome Mazdoor Colony, a slum habitation in East Delhi. He lost his ration card and applied for a duplicate one in January 2004. He made several rounds to the local Food & Civil Supplies office for the next three months. But the clerks and officials would not even look at him, leave alone do his job or bother to tell him the status of his application. Ultimately, he filed an application under the Right to Information Act asking for the daily progress made on his application, names of the officials, who were supposed to act on his application and what action would be taken against these officials for their inaction. Within a week of filing application under the Right to Information Act, he was visited by an inspector from the Food Department, who informed him that the card had been made and he could collect it from the office. When Nannu went to collect his card next day, he was given a very warm treatment by the Food & Supply Officer (FSO), who is the head of a Circle. The FSO offered him tea and requested him to withdraw his application under the Right to Information, since his work had already been done.
What does Nannu’s example show? What impact did Nannu’s action have on officials? Ask your parents their experiences when they approach government officials to attend to their problems.
Nannu’s example shows that government officials shun away from their duties and look for all possible excuses to get rid of their work. It’s because they have job security. Usually they work when they get pressure from their seniors or they get fear of losing job or some action being taken against them, as it happened in Nannu’s case.
“Once my parents also went to a government hospital to take my grandmother to the doctor, where the doctors were gossiping and having tea party with their colleagues and the patients were waiting for long for them. My father got really upset seeing all that. He went inside the C.E.O. room and complained against all the doctors who were not doing duties properly and immediately a meeting was called and a strict action was taken against them”.