The thought of visiting a government office to get some work done makes every Nagpuri gasp. One knows that the day will be spent standing in queues, staring at walls and almost always annoyed government employees. Yes, it is a cliche but it is also true sometimes. Be it getting a domicile at the Nagpur zilla office or verification for passport, a common citizen has to go through the long, grueling and lazy government process.
A day in the government office starts with standing in a queue to collect or submit a form.
Tedious Processes
The form is usually long and has multiple pages that need to be filled. Dare you ask for help with some section that you do not understand from a government employee there, because being a public servant, of course they do not have time for the public. Once you have filled the form and after a long toil got to the counter to submit it, there will always be some additional documents that you would need to present with the form; documents about which there is no mention, either in any guidelines or website, documents which are assumed you will carry. After arranging the documents, standing in the queue again and finally submitting the form, you either have to wait in the office for further processing or have to come back on an assigned day for the same beating again.
The Dreaded Lunch Hours
Assuming you are made to wait in the office, where you wait for your turn again, your stomach rumbling with hunger and your head spinning with the long wait, while the public servants enjoy their hour long lunch with no backup in their place; at no point the higher officials must have pondered about keeping the work going by allocating lunch hours in groups to their employees so that the work does not stop. The time of a common man does not matter. The rigidity of the government offices is uncanny.
The situation is getting better with many processes going digital. However, there are still instances where one has to visit a government office going through the same unpleasant experience. A day where a common man will be treated with respect in a government office does not seem in sight. They only seem to work at their optimal level for people with power, while a common public, who through their voting rights, bestowed upon that power, is powerless in a place full of public servants.
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