The Hindu Business Line : A checkpost sans corruption?

Move to make the Walayar checkpost in Kerala “corruption-free” for an extensive and continual social audit to increase tax collection is facing teething troubles.

K.G. Kumar

As one of the leading consumer States in the country, Kerala depends on the regular flow of trucks and lorries from neighbouring States to keep its markets and consumer demand satiated. And one of the main gateways into Kerala is Walayar in Palakkad district on the Tamil Nadu border, through which over half of all the transported goods reach Kerala. One-third of all the commercial vehicles coming to the State pass through the Walayar checkpost.

But alongside this massive flow of goods is another stream of a different, more worrisome kind – of corruption in the form of bribes and “speed money” that change hands daily at Walayar, often through the auspices of middlemen and brokers.

Thus, it was heartening to hear last week Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac’s announcement that the Walayar checkpost would be made “corruption-free” with streamlined vehicle movement facilities and an extensive and continual social audit to increase tax collection. Towards that end, a new team of officers was formally inducted at the Walayar checkpost by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on August 7.

New team

According to the Finance Minister, the checkpost would get a new team of handpicked officers, half-a-dozen new counters and a new protocol for functioning to check corruption and increase turnover time.

With the addition of the new counters, the total number of counters at the checkpost would go up to 12. Every vehicle that entered the checkpost area would be issued a token and required to remain in the queue.

No vehicle other than those arriving for inspection could be parked in the checkpost area. Unauthorised parking on the road before the checkpost would not be allowed. Only the staff at the checkpost and staff of the vehicles reaching the checkpost area would have entry into the area.

Dr Isaac said the practice of leaving the satellite checkposts unmanned or manned by staff who did additional duty after their work at the Walayar checkpost, would be ended and dedicated staff deployed to the checkposts, to avoid smuggling of goods.

The Finance Minister added that steps would be taken for monthly ‘social audit’ of the functioning of the checkpost by vehicle owners, trade bodies and elected representatives.

In order to further transparency, media persons would be permitted to inspect the functioning of the checkpost, Dr Isaac said.

Also, 250 trained officials would be appointed to man the checkpost from Tuesday. To curb mafia activities there, 75 police officials headed by a Deputy Superintendent of Police would be posted.

However, a few days after the Finance Minister’s announcement and the Chief Minister’s inauguration of the new set-up and team of officers at Walayar, media reports pointed to long queues and interminable delays at the checkpost.

Clearly, it’s one thing to make grandiose plans, quite another to implement them, especially in a milieu long nurtured on a diet of grease and bribery.

More charitably, perhaps these are teething troubles and Walayar may yet get cleaned up, even if it never becomes a scrubbed, sanitised and disease-free model for all checkposts.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

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A checkpost sans corruption?