Philology can be a fascinating pastime. When one refers to the roots of words like ‘sumptuary’, it throws up veritable legacy data like: “1600, from Latin sumptuarius (relating to expenses), from sumptus (expense, cost), from sumere (to borrow, buy, spend, eat, drink, consume, employ)”.
The word gained popularity with the Bengal government’s recent decision to introduce a new allowance (ours is not to question its timing) for senior Indian Administrative Service officers to “entertain guests”. Even bureaucratic circles are abuzz over this magnanimity amid austerity, when one of the state government’s flagship schemes, student’s credit card, has left thousands of pupils stranded and on the brink of manic depression over unfulfilled promises.
This year, with schoolchildren graduating without exams, lakhs of students enrolled in colleges. The Bengal government announced on June 30 that students would be given credit cards for cheaper loans (with the state government as guarantor) of up to Rs 10 lakh for their education till the age of 40. But even nationalized banks are rejecting most of these applications and some banks even said they had not received any circular in this regard.
Over one lakh applications were filed prior to the Puja break in October. The government claimed two private banks had agreed to process loans against such applications but not even half were cleared, in spite of instructions from the chief secretary. Over 170 ‘loan sanction camps’ were organized in Calcutta and the districts, where thousands of applications were processed. A task force was formed with nodal officers for mobilization camps but less than half (58,000 applications) have been sanctioned.
One student’s mother, working as a peon to educate her two daughters ever since her husband passed away 10 years ago, said there is tremendous social pressure on her to send the elder one, who has just enrolled into college, to work as a full-time domestic help because her student credit card application had not been cleared. She is well aware of the agonizing tales that surface when teenaged girls are lured away on the pretext of jobs and is distraught. She pleaded with local politicians, including a member of the legislative assembly, but to no avail.
In fact, politicians are so busy lining their coffers that even the campaign for the civic elections was marked by apathy. Only the Left Front and the BJP candidates campaigned in our locality. The re-contesting TMC councillor, certain of victory, did not bother with house-to-house visits. After the devastating fallout of Amphan, when we were left without electricity for a week, she had quipped, “There’s nothing I can do!” Likewise for broken roads and erratic water supply.
Against such a backdrop, does the government’s decision to give the chief secretary and the additional chief secretary Rs 34,000 each every month to “entertain guests” not smack of misplaced priorities? Principal secretaries and secretaries will get Rs 20,000 and Rs 17,000 per month, respectively.
A recently retired IAS officer said the sumptuary allowance ceiling is much lower elsewhere. “We were reimbursed the cost of tea and biscuits served to visitors from our canteen,” he said. “On the odd occasion when lunch was served, it still did not exceed Rs 3,000.” A general manager in the Indian Railways said their sumptuary allowance “is much smaller than that of the Bengal government.” Another former IAS officer said, “When I was district magistrate, the expenses for tea at conferences and guests were dealt with by the nazirkhana. In the secretariat, the canteen bill was paid from a fund kept for this purpose.” He wondered scathingly whether the nature of guests or mode of “entertaining” them had altered significantly since his time.
So the next time you need to meet a bureaucrat in this league, don’t forget to ask for a treat. After all, they are being paid handsomely for it. But at what cost?
