The corruption goes on....

The devastating floods of Uttarakhand had left all of us completely numb. The pictures of surging and angry rivers, houses and villages being completed washed away, loss of lives, the temple of Kedarnath, the role of the Indian Army; its all still so vivid in the mind. The horror of what people would have gone through remains and surely many of us, seeing the plight of the people of Uttarakhand, would have donated generously to the various flood relief funds.

And if you thought that money went where it should ideally have gone, you are sadly mistaken. Once again, callousness and greed took over humanitarian needs. In a response to an RTI, it has come to light that officials supervising relief efforts stayed luxuriously in hotels, ate like a glutton and fudged accounts. Shockingly, the RTI response shows that bills were forged and inflated - Rs 194 for half a litre milk, Rs.7,000/day for stay in hotels, huge bills for mutton, chicken, cottage cheese and gulab jamuns. These officials distributed relief funds twice to same persons, purchased 1,800 rain coats from same shop for three consecutive days, submitted fuel bills indicating that diesel was purchased for scooter and motorcycles which were camouflaged as four wheelers. The worst of it all - some officials claimed to have started relief work in January 2013, six months before Uttarakhand was ravaged by floods in June.

People nowadays are already very wary of donating to any cause ...and with this kind of news coming to light, whatever little people wanted to contribute will also cease.  Sadly, not a single officer will neither get suspended nor fired. When there is no fear of prosecution at all, this is what will happen.