Woman puts corrupt peon behind bars
Nitasha Natu I TNN
Mumbai: Call it Gandhigiri. A young housewife who had applied for a new ration card after shifting from Malad to Andheri, was told the procedure would take months unless she greased palms. What’s more, even her husband discouraged her saying this was routine and changing the system single-handedly was not simple. But Sheetal Salgaokar refused to be cowed down and informed the anti-corruption bureau. On Thursday, sleuths from the ACB accompanied Salgaokar to the rationing office at Malad and arrested the peon, who had asked for a bribe, red-handed.
A mother of twins, Salgaokar, who has a management degree, said she wanted to set an example. Salgaokar first visited the rationing office at Malad three years ago after her marriage to software engineer Bhaskar. “We wanted a ration card with both our names and our Malad address in it,’’ she said. “However, we were both working and officials who visited my house for inspection often found it locked and eventually the application got cancelled.’’
In 2006, Salgaokar moved to Seven Bungalows. She wanted to get a passport made and decided to apply for a new ration card. “The Andheri office told me to get a certificate from Malad stating that my name was not in their records and my old application stood cancelled.’’ On January 9, I went to the Malad office and told a staffer, Mohan Govari, that I needed the certificate soon,” Salgaokar said.
Govari told her that issuing the certificate would take 1-2 months or more. “I told him I couldn’t wait for so long. At this he said I’d have to ‘look after’ the employees too saying I’d have to cough up Rs 500. I was told to return on Friday,’’ Salgaokar said. On the way home, she told the autorickshaw driver about it who advised her to approach the ACB.
“I went home and told my husband who said trapping government officials was not so easy. But I was determined. I called up the ACB and was summoned to their Worli office the next day,’’ she said.
After a talk with the ACB, on Thursday she returned to the Malad office, this time with a digital recorder inside her handkerchief. “I told Govari, the peon, that I wanted the certificate this week itself. He said the employees’ expectations would increase and I’d have to pay Rs 1,000. I got him to reduce Rs 200, before returning with our recorded conversation,’’ Salgaokar said.
ACB sleuths heard the conversation and realised that the case was genuine. Led by DCP Vilas Tupe, they went with Salgaokar to the Malad office. She was given marked notes to be handed over to Govari who was then caught accepting the notes, trying to cover them in an old ration card. Govari is currently cooling his heels in the ACB’s lock-up.