By D.N. Singh
The Patna high court today struck down the provision of lifetime official bungalows for former chief ministers. It should be an eye opener for the political executives in the country. While describing the provisions as ultra vires to the constitution, the court has rightly pointed out that such luxuries can be viewed as a huge burden on the common men’s hard earned money.
If seen in that light then there must be initiatives from all concerned about such extravaganzas for the political people at the cost of the tax-payers. When every government in power, either in a state or at the Centre, loudly claims concern for the common man and espouse the need for austerity, it may sound shrill and vacuous when one sees what is happening at the bottom.
In every state there is a governor house spanning over acres of land with a row of spruce and huge sprawling lawns and exotic hedges besides a number of establishments to accommodate the Raj Bhavan staff and so on. Not to be economical with truth, each governor house is a huge burden on any state’s economy when seen in the light of the real need. It canbe more moderate and decent too.
Some may argue that such establishments have a heritage value then no logic can dispute the belief that such elegance grows to be an essential condition for creating financial a-sepsis in the long run. But everything is driven by traditions, as old as centuries, and fool people with customary gimmicks.
There is another sacramental cloak called official accommodations or bungalows for the ministers and big officers built over areas much more than required land area. They are allowed to be legitimate with perverse freedom. This is not any state-specific issue but all pervasive. When a common man in the city scrambles for a small area to dream about a shelter, such hideous facilities negate all that falling within the ambit of austerity kind of things.
Nobody can stop a government like in Telengana to build houses for its lawmakers worth over crores of rupees and showcase that as progress, description of abject human conditions, their encounter with hunger and death, are all only for the media to report and the common to read or watch.
A look at the official bungalows in the national capital Delhi, supposedly the cornerstone of political hypocrisy, they make a laughing stock of ideals of Gandhiji or Abdul Kalam and Lohia.
All these should also be ultra vires to the constitution but that would not happen. And the people who enjoy the pride of being the most powerful organ of the system, easily fall victim to the charitable deceptions of leaders and ‘babus’.
