Right. Like many, I too decided to cash in on the fall in real estate prices and bought myself an apartment. The registration is still due; so is the possession.  When the developer said I could get my apartment registered, I was very happy.

I called up the builder’s office and asked how much that would cost and the lady from the builder’s office on the phone told me the stamp duty cost.  Apart from the registration amount, I need to keep aside Rs.25000 towards the legal fees, she said.

I raised my eye brows because I thought Rs.25000 is way too expensive a legal fee. I am not buying a company for god’s sake! I am just buying a decent apartment.
I asked her to explain why it is so expensive and also wanted to know what it covers. She said it covers the lawyer’s fees in preparing my sale agreement and said it also covers the miscellaneous amount. I asked her for a break up on how much goes to the lawyer and how much goes towards the miscellaneous part.

She said Rs.10000 goes to the lawyer and the balance Rs.15000 is miscellaneous.
This cracked me up. I laughed out loudly – this was the first time in my life that I heard something as this where “miscellaneous is expensive than the actual part”.

I am sure she must have noticed exclamation marks all around my head even through the phone!. I collected my composure, sat down and asked why the miscellaneous part was higher than the actual part? She said, ‘’Sir, you know about it.’’ She obviously took me for granted.

I said, ‘’Madame, honestly I don’t know about it’’ and requested her to explain to me. She said, Sir… (pause)… Sir… (pause)…. Sir, miscellaneous is towards bribe for Sub-Registrar.

Now things started heating up and I said, No way I am paying this bribe. I got very furious on how the system is operating. She said, I could not avoid this if I wanted to get my apartment registered without any delay.

She also said, if I didn’t pay up, then they (builders) would have trouble in getting work done from the Sub-Registrar’s office for other clients. She requested that I pay this amount to ensure their relationship with the Sub-Registrar wass kept alive.

Firstly, why should I pay bribe to get my apartment registered which I have bought with my hard earned money? Secondly, going by what that poor lady said, why should I pay up to ensure they maintain good relationship with the Sub-Registrar?  What do I get out of it?

Why is a layman targeted like this? The development where I have bought the apartment has close to 600 apartments. A simple math throws light on how much this Sub-Registrar makes illegally from bribes. Where does this bribe go? Who all get to share this? These are the questions that are bothering me as I have stopped worrying about how I will escape paying this bribe.

The structure appears to have a bureaucratic core. The bureaucracy which was set up to control economic life has created the incentives for individual and institutionalized corruption. It’s a classic case of fence eating the crop.

The time has come to dismantle the bureaucracy as that would be the first step to fix the problem of corruption in India. This would lead to transparency and abolish the bribes that political parties could extract through the bureaucratic machinery. It will have a productive effect – that of getting bribe-seeking thugs out of political system in India.
Isn’t India’s development critically dependent on reducing corruption?
As I ponder, all I can say is “God Bless My Country”!