Aboard the gravy train

In the good old days when the then Union petroleum minister, Satish Sharma, was our Patron of Petrol Pumps gas agencies, kerosene depots an...

In the good old days when the then Union petroleum minister, Satish Sharma, was our Patron of Petrol Pumps gas agencies, kerosene depots and the like, this newspaper spared neither him nor the Congress government he represented. In 1996, the Supreme Court8212;taking cognisance of the fact that oil corrupts and oil plus absolute power corrupts absolutely8212;observed that 8220;a minister cannot commit breach of the trust reposed in him by the people. The allotments made by him were wholly mala fide8230; Lack of transparency promotes nepotism and arbitrariness. A transparent and objective procedure has to be evolved.8221; So look at the 8220;transparent8221; and 8220;objective8221; procedure that the present Union minister of petroleum and natural gas, Ram Naik, came up with: Dealer Selection Boards DSBs, headed by retired high court judges personally selected by the minister.

Completely overboard, you would say? Well, as this newspaper pointed out in its 8216;Pump Scam8217; series last year and as the on-going Supreme Court-appointed inquiry into the scandal, reported in the latest Sunday Express, revealed, Naik8217;s DSBs were not just opaque and unaccountable, but came with a backdoor on well-oiled hinges.

The result was that hundreds of politically well-connected individuals ended up cornering the pumps and dealerships at the expense of more deserving candidates by the simple expedient of being given more weightage in a completely arbitrary and ad hoc marking system. Going by the cases that have so far been scrutinised, it appears that those meant to be the gate-keepers8212;the chairpersons of the various boards8212;turned out to play a pivotal role in expediting tainted allotments.

Whether they did this because they were forced to do so8212;some chairpersons had indeed complained to a parliamentary standing committee that they faced such pressures8212;or they did it of their own volition, is not the point. The system was clearly designed to promote both patronage and corruption.

As the inquiry continues apace, a great deal more dirt is expected to hit the ceiling. What8217;s important to realise is that the 8216;Pump Scam8217; is just one instance of how adept those who are appointed to deliver good governance and uphold constitutional principles have become in bending rules and evolving mechanisms to benefit themselves and their ilk8212;and sometimes in the name of cleaning up the system!

What8217;s unfortunate about this story is that a bold effort by the Supreme Court to end petroleum-powered political patronage ended as a damp squib. What8217;s unfortunate is that the petroleum minister, responsible for ensuring transparency in allotments, ended up evolving a suspect system. What8217;s unfortunate is that, despite this scam and the consequent embarrassment caused to this government, he continues to be the petroleum minister.