On May 1, 2017, The Government of India had taken a decision of banning the red beacons on the cars of the VIP ministers, in order to give way to a new king of system where every person was to be made to feel as important.
This, being a progressive step, from the side of the Hon’ble Prime Minister, was welcomed by all, however, many have since then questioned this step as giving only the cherry of the entire cake to the citizens of the country.
As can be observed from the various kinds of data, the VIPs of India are enjoying many more privileges than they should be entitled of and it seems as if no government official is ready to let that go.
This has been made evident by a report made by the Times of India, which had stated that for every VIP, at least 3 police officials have been stationed while only 1 police officer is available for ever 363 individuals.
And this is not all, recently, the royalty of the VIPs was also shown by the recent remarks of the Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam, who had reportedly stated that the people who were able to afford the vehicles should be happy about the fuel prices, no matter how high they be.
Data compiled by the Bureau of Police Research and Development(BPR&D) under the home ministry had recently, presented a report which stated that out of a total 19.26 lakh police officers in the country, 56,944 are deployed just for the safety of 20,828 VIPs across 29 states and six Union territories.
It also stated that VIP culture is more prevalent in north and east India. Bihar, which has one of the poorest police-to-population ratios , has the maximum number of 3,200 ‘VIPs’ being given protection by 6,248 cops. West Bengal is another state that makes full use of police for such privileges. The state has 2,207 ‘VIPs’ protected by 4,233 cops, while only 501 cops were originally sanctioned for such duties.
Hence, with all of these statistics and the recent events, it seems that it will be a long time till any normal citizen in India will feel as important as the other ‘elites’.
With such shortage of public officials, working merely for the sake of the ‘representatives of the people’, we can also take into consideration, many other examples that have come to surface, recently. One of the latest ones is the hike in the number of swine flu cases in the State of Rajasthan, with a continuous shortage of the vaccines. However, if the news reports are to be believed, these ‘short in number’ vaccines can be found in bulk, lying idle in the go-downs, ready to expire or to be readily used by those who have the money to afford them.
Further, taking in the property in question of the Rapist Ram Rahim Baba along with the elegant treatment that he faced while being taken to the Prison, after conviction, the lessening of the importance of these people is nothing more than questionable.
From holding the traffic to manipulating the Traffic lights, to getting more importance in the hospitals, even in the most grotesque of situations, it can be very evidently stated  that the VIP culture is here to stay, unless more of a stringent step is taken, starting from the lessening of the security on these people.
They have masions, they have money, maybe it is time, that we, for the least have some security and a feeling of safety.
