a half-day at a ration card office

Muna Apa (the Apnalaya social worker I'm shadowing) took me to visit a ration card office.  She goes there once a week and represents people who need a ration card- related service but are not getting an adequate response from the officials there.  Often, if you're uneducated and poor (i.e- can't pay a bribe), the officers just tell you to get lost, or indefinitely delay your application.  So Muna Apa, armed with the knowledge of exactly what is legal and what is not, and also with the clout of the Apnalaya organization behind her, helps people who face this situation.  

I really got to have a good look a how the application process works.  The ration card building itself was a long, one-story structure with a large dirt lot in front of it.  She took me into the office where the clerks sat, and told me their functions.  (You go to this window to add your name to a ration card.  This one is for new applications...).

When we left the office, Muna Apa asked if I had noticed the men crowding around the various desks.  She explained that they were "brokers" meaning they accepted money from people who had the means to bribe to get their ration card business done.  The brokers facilitate the bribe between the ration card officer and the applicant.  That way, the applicant never has to pay a ration card officer directly, and officers can easily deny the charge that they accept bribes.  There were probably about 10 or 12 brokers there today.  Apnalaya often complains and has them removed from the office, and they stay away for a week or two, but often drift back.  During that week, they just conduct their business right next to hte building, technically off the premises.  The brokers take a cut of the bribe, the ration card clerks get some, the ration officer (head of the office) gets some, as do people in higher levels of government... the money follows the chain of command pretty far, according to Muna Apa and also according to others I have spoken to.

After I met the ration officer, Muna Apa told me that he had been suspended a little while ago for bribery related reasons, but now he's back.  The rest of the time we were there (about an hour or so), Munna Apa was in and out of his office, bringing him the documents or stories of various people that she is representing.

One of the people she was helping today was named Amina, a woman in her late 30's or early 40's who wants to add her name to her uncle's ration card.  She put in the application 15 days ago but hasn't heard any response.  The official who is in charge of her application seems to be on vacation.  She is told to check back on Thursday, when he is expected to return, but Munaapa says it is their classic way of operation, to keep telling people to come back the next day, tire them out, but not give them what they need.  An additional reason Amina has a hard time dealing the office is that she doesn't speak Marathi, and all of their forms are only printed in Marathi. 

Amina is from UP and has been in Mumbai about 12 or 13 years, ever since she got married.  She needs to be added to a ration card before she can take her 12 year old son to the hospital for an operation he needs.  Munapapa checks over her paperwork and finds it in order.  She goes to the ration card official in the large office, explains Amina's problem.  She's sent to the ration officer's office.  He tells her to go back to the other office.  She goes back and forth twice, and then someone tells her to wait until the guy who is in charge of Amina's file comes back from vacation.  So Munaapa feels there is nothing else she can do at the moment, she'll take up Amina's case again in a couple of days.

 

For more on what I've learned about ration cards, see here and here. 

Comments

[Younus]

The ration card office reminds me of two places in Karachi that I would need to go to some times. The first one was the old passport office across the street from the green domed Masjid-e-Khizra on Preedy steet. The exterior of this office (as I remember it about 30 years ago) was almost identical to the ration card office pictured above and makes me think that these are both legacies of the British raj. The attitude of the office workers and the under the table dealings involving brokers is all too familiar to people who have had the unfortunate neccessity of applying for a passport at that office. There was a very funny episode of "Sach Gap" a satirical comedy from Lahore TV which depicted a clerk at such a passport office gleefully rejecting an application because he finally found that the "Zed" form was missing from the application. It may be interesting if you could ask Shamim behen to see if she can find these old Sach gap episodes when she is back in Karachi.
The other place I am reminded of is the motor vehicle registration office (DMV) near the Qaid's Mazar. The grilled window with people waiting looks like the same window where I used to have to push and shove to finally get a chance to pay the registration fee for our 1965 Opel Rekord.

It is interesting that the ration card is such a critical identity document here as opposed to the National identity card which is essential for any official task in Pakistan. Is there the equivalent of the NIC in India and is the ration card important because the identity card is not available to the immigrants easily?

[Rameez]

That's really interesting. I think it makes a lot of sense for me to look more into the possible colonial-era roots of the set-up of these things. And I'll ask mom about the show.

The ration card is only such a critical identity document in Maharashtra. Different states have different ways of implementing the rationing system, and in Maharashtra, the card has become a stand-in for a critical proof of identity. This is despite the fact that on the Maharashtran ration card itself, it says the document is not meant to be used for identity proof, and there have been several government regulations also issued to that effect. I'm really interested to find out how the system works in Calcutta.

There is an Indian national identity card but it hasn't become universal yet. Among the people I'm interviewing, the most common identity documents they have (or wish they had) are ration cards and election cards, in addition to things like marriage certificates, and their childrens' birth certificates.