Comments on: Legal corruption is better than illegal corruption

by: swami

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Your solution was proposed by “Cho” Ramaswamy - then playwright, now journalist and MP(?) - in his Tamil play “Muhammed Bin Thuglaq”.

The following things come to my mind…

1. I am not sure why you wanted to auction/privatize only the TTE posts. By doing this, and not privatizing the system (Railways), the immediate impact would be that the TTE post contractor will keep the fine for not buying a ticket with value Rs 5 as Rs 4 and collect the fine from all passengers. Thus he can sweep all the revenue that Railways would get at their cost! Am I missing something? Or did you mean something else? If you meant Privatizing Railways itself then “yeah, we can do that… but…”

2. And you use your first example to justify your title… i.e to show that legal corruption is “better” than illegal corruption (I guess)… But I fail to make out, in what way is it better… In your solution space, people will get to know who is paying what amount (now they can only guess who is paying and dont know what amount)… But how exactly does this make things better - and even if transparency is better, by how much? Do you really think this will impact their voting in a *sizeable* manner?

by: Ravikiran

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Swami, that is why I was proposing auctioning the posts. If the fine for not buying a 5 rupee ticket is Rs. 30 and lets say that the legal hassles of actually collecting the fine make it worth 25 bucks, a reasonable TTE can tell the passenger, “pay 25 bucks and we’re square.” That’ll be perfectly legal. It doesn’t matter to the railways because the TTE pockets the money legally. Because this right has been auctioned to the TTE, the TTE must have already paid the railways some amount less than 25 say 25-x Remember that the railways don’t pay him a salary anymore and because of the competition, you can be dead sure that the x adds up to less than the salary that it is paying the TTEs right now.

I am not actually proposing this solution. I am all for privatising the railways, and if it is just a question of privatising ticket collection, it will probably be a better idea to auction off the rights to collection agencies than to individuals.

by: Aadisht

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Ravikiran, two questions:

Firstly, do you have a reason corruption and ticketless travel is much more prevalent on the railways than on (government owned) buses?

And secondly, have you ever read the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett? That takes legalised corruption to, eh, interesting extremes.

by: Ravikiran

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

The answer to the second question is no.
As to the first question, I am not sure. I am not even sure if ticketless travel is in fact more prevalent on the railways than in buses. I’ve heard that in many rural areas, it is kind of accepted to bribe the conductor.

I guess tradition plays a role. No one bribes in Mumbai because they’ve got into the habit of enforcing rules right from the time of the British. Once a conductor committed suicide because he was suspended after some extra money was found in his satchel.

Then there is the factor that it is easier to get away with it - There are fewer TTEs as a proportion of passengers than conductors.

Of course, shortages also play a part.

by: Aadisht

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

In the region I travel (NH-1 from Delhi to Rajpura, and then on to Patiala), ticket collection on PRTC (Punjab Roadways) as well as Haryana Roadways is pretty stringent, no bribes. I don’t know about the rural areas, of course. On the same route, travelling ticketless, or paying a hundred rupees to the TTE for an AC Chair Car seat is pretty much accepted on all the trains.
You’re right, though. Shortages would probably be the most important factor. The bus service is frequent enough that you won’t ever have to wait more than fifteen minutes for a seat.

by: Dancing with Dogs

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

March Mela Madness!

Well, better late than never as they say - so here comes the Mela late by about half-a-day owing to my being out of the house most of the morning, which again is owing to my getting ready to join the workforce again starting the coming Monday. Yay! An…