Posted on August 5, 2007 - by rdilipk1

A helpless millionaire government

Is the government doing what it should be doing? Why is it that I pay tax sincerely yet I do not get the basic facilities and amenities? A lot of these questions arise…

I am a tax-payer. I pay tax to the tune of 20% of my salary-my hard earned money. My government collects it. But what is it that they spend it on, I am not aware. Neither would any of the citizens know where this money goes.
I am told that this money is spent on infrastructure and development. It is spent in providing us, citizens with the amenities that we all enjoy, that we all us everyday and I wonder what these amenities are.
I pay an exorbitant amount for a liter of fuel in my car and I drive more than 20 KM to my office. The roads are so smooth that I need to send my car for a servicing every month and you would want to re-write the meaning of ‘Smooth’. I spent half of my travel time in ‘traffic-jams’ because my government doesn’t know what planning is. They build fly-over and cross-over bridges so that they can travel smoothly, not to reduce traffic congestions.
We are not lucky enough to see a good monsoon in this city-the capital city, Delhi. But when monsoon comes we feel we are the luckiest, in 2 ways not just one. The first is we get a relief from the scorching heat of the sun and the second is we get to see what our government looks like. Areas termed as sub-cities get drowned in water and life comes to a stand-still, thanks to the maintenance authorities. Drainages get blocked and under-passes collapse. A picture of which is attached.

This is the road I took to travel to office, now it is blocked – for how long we do not know. So now the net result is that I have to travel an extra 11 KMs to go to office. So is this why I am paying the taxes for?
No, not really. If one wants to know why we pay the tax, take a look at the front page of the leading dailies of the past 4 days. It is so that, roadside “Chole-walas” can become billionaires because of their contacts with politicians, so that my poor politicians can travel free in first class Boeings to foreign countries, so that they can spend as much as they want in telephone and so that they get cheap electricity.

Is this what democracy is? There has to be a change and we need to initiate it. So why wait, let us begin today and now.