No Objection once you dole out money!
You fill it, shut it and forget it….thus runs the advert of a popular motorbike brand to highlight the mileage the vehicle gives for petrol.
Now, there is something else we not merely forget but do not even care to give a thought to. The pain the owner of a gas station or petrol pump undergoes to set up the establishment. The scouting of an ideal location, tie up with oil companies, and finally the vital and time-consuming task – the procurement of a `No Objection Certificate` or NOC from a top police official or District Magistrate.
Our complainant from Mirzapur (Uttar Pradesh) speaks of his father’s struggle to set up a pump station where the District Magistrate refused to provide an NOC despite all paperwork being in place.
Constant delays in issuing the certificate by the Magistrate only resulted in daily loss for the pump station owner. Finally, he understood the message that the judge had to be bribed. So he paid a whopping Rs.1,20, 000 to the official and the certificate was granted (http://ipaidabribe.com/bribe-central/bribed-dm-signing-noc).
This is not the case in some isolated pocket of the country. Even cosmopolitan cities like Bangalore and Pune reveal incidents where Rs 25,000 had to be paid as bribe to procure the certificate.
(By: Manishka Soorya)