ABSTRACT

27. See notes 11 and 12.28. However, in states where private engineering colleges are now permitted, very large fees for a place in a private college are now common; and authorisation of private education in engineering and medicine is being opposed in some states by people who argue that the graduates of such colleges who get jobs in the public sector will have a strong incentive to recoup the fee on the job, perhaps in illicit ways.For some years in the late 1960s and first half of the 1970s the supply of graduates and diploma-holders wanting to join the Irrigation Department exceeded the expansion of places, and it is said that joining payments did then have to be made. The engineers of whom I speak all joined before this time.29. The strategy varies from case to case depending on a whole range of factors, such as the political complexion at the place to which the engineer wishes to go, and the engineer’s own ‘influence’. What follows is a typical pattern, as I understand it.30. I ignore the complication that (since the early 1970s) there are Ministers for each of Major Irrigation, Medium Irrigation and Minor Irrigation, and several Secretaries for different parts of Irrigation; one Minister and one Secretary are clearly senior to the others. I shall also ignore the role of the Secretary (who is an Indian Administrative Service officer) in the following discussion. I further ignore the distinction between members of the state legislature and members of the national legislature.31. Two qualifications: If he can, the EE may take a very influential man with him to see the Minister, someone to whom the Minister will find it difficult to say no. This will help the negotiations. Second, on big construction projects the CE is in charge of several Circles, and is the sanctioning authority for EE transfers within this set of Circles.32. This, at least, is how the engineers understand the matter-though given that political parties tend to be weak as corporate organisations, the distinction between personal use and party war-chests may not be sharp.33. Normally only the one or two most powerful MLAs will be visited, though six or seven or more may have significant parts of their constituencies irrigated by the canal. In the state in which this study is set, the local government structure (zilla parishad, panchayat samithi, village panchayat) was more or less moribund from 1970 to 1981. In states where elective local government structures function, people like the samithi president may also be involved in transfers as well as the local MLAs.34. Some Superintending Engineer posts on the deltas cost 12-15 lakhs (for what is normally a two-year term of office), or 38-48 times the average annual SE salary. Three specific posts are known to cost in this range, all within the area considered to be the nerve centre of state politics. It is common knowledge that the incumbents of these posts can ‘make millions'. Building sumptuous retirement houses is a favourite use of the profits-a use much facilitated by engineers' privileged access to scarce cement at below free market prices. (One reason why engineers like canal-lining programmes is because, as one said, cement is a gold mine’.)35. The relative authority of the CE and SE depends on whether the transfer is inter-or intra-Circle.36. Three complications: In some areas there is a big farmer-contractor who, in the selection of the MLA, is known as the kingmaker; the AE may well visit him. Second, where excess water from an upland canal runs into a coastal reservoir, the MLAs and Ministers under that reservoir can have a distinct interest in having an AE who is sympathetic to their needs at the critical point of the upland canal where the amount of ‘excess’ is determined. In this way, interest in what goes on in one watershed is by no means confined to the people and politicians of that watershed, so the patterns of influence can be spatially quite complex. Third, the local MLA may be of different party, or different faction, to the Minister, and this again leads to more complex patterns of influence.37. This figure comes from a canal where the EE’s post cost about one lakh in the late 1970s; where the price of the EE’s post is higher one would expect the payment to MLAs to be higher also. If however the man is of unusual influence he may not pay the MLAs-‘they have to come to him, he does not have to go to them’, said one informant describing an actual case. In this case, although the man had a great deal of influence-‘he had four Ministers on his side’—he still had to pay a lot of money to get the post, but the payment went to senior officers, not to the Minister or MLAs.

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