The Health & Safety Executive bid process

Composing my fog rant led me to thinking about Health & Safety within India, or moreover, the lack of it.

India has an unusual parliamentary system in so far as a cabinet minster will openly pay for a prime Governmental portfolio.

Elsewhere in the world this would rightly be seen as opening the door to corruption. After all, why pay for a position unless it offers good returns?

This enigmatic process seems to be accepted as par for the course, thus leading to a systematic trickle down effect through the layers of Government and business via payment of bribes or wheel greasing “backsheesh” as it is known colloquially.

The WIIFM factor (What’s in it for me?) is so ubiquitous you can almost hear it grinding the economic brakes as it paves a cowboy path to inefficiency.

Illegally sited hoardings for local activists are found at every other road junction with the untrustworthy faces of moustached, jowly politicians staring outwards towards the teeming masses almost threatening them to vote their way.

So, given this blatant corruption we are left with two feasible hypothesis(es) .....plural alert! plural alert!..... to explain the HSE situation:

1. The minister in question has paid so much for his post any company or corporation can buy their way around the legal framework.

2. The portfolio was so unattractive that no minister bid for it meaning there is no such thing as an Indian HSE

Either way, it fails to make living in India an appealing option for the risk-averse.