Sharad’s experience rings true to much of what I faced while trying to get water data this spring:
But it is clear that Indian bureaucracy sucks bigtime. Government staff harass you for no reason. Agreed that Silje made a mistake by not registering earlier. But asking somebody to postpone/cancel an international air-ticket is not a joke. Many travellers to India are students. Those people may not have enough money to book another ticket. It is sad that S, V and ACP were not compassionate about foreign travellers.
As we plan our project, consideration to how responsive government institutions will be to what we want to do will be critical. Along these same lines, cultural considerations will be paramount. Some cultures don’t try to live as fast-paced as we Americans do, and some do more. Flexibility, and not frustration, is the personality characteristic which will grant us most success, I think.
Indian bureaucrats are one of the most insensitive people in the world. As most of them are corrupt, only money talks here. India’s poorest suffer the most. Indian govt. provides them money under many scheme but the poorest people pay 50% of that money towards bribe.
Regional Transport Authority - RTO - Issues license to drive any vehicle if you bribe the authority. A person who knows how to drive but has no money to bribe will be harassed.
But many times I wonder. Why don’t Indians retaliate? Is it in our culture too?
I don’t think that retaliating is the best option though. It’s unfortunate that so much of the government is corrupt, especially because of the inefficiencies it lends to, but is the best approach to fight fire with fire? What’s the best way to pragmatically alleviate the solution? Specifically, what would you do next time to make the process run smoother?