Influence

"Hi I am the son of Mr. ******" this was the first thing people will tell when they are sons/daughters of some influential parents. In India nowadays nobody respects for what you have done or what are you going to do but they give respect for what your parents are. Influence is one of the worst principles which are being followed in India and more worse is the fact that it is so deep rooted that it cannot be uprooted so easily.  In private firms it won’t matter much whether you know somebody or something like that. If you are a lay man and you want to get some work done then just be prepared to go through hell. I just wanted to pen down the difficulties a lay man has to undergo if he wants any loans from nationalized banks. Initially he has to go to manager of the branch and talk to him, but this manager will be so busy (just for namesake) that he will tell the guy to come tomorrow or day after tomorrow. This guy is having no other option but to go back and come on the time he was told to. 2 days later this guy goes back to bank manager where he will be told to wait for some time. After some 2 hrs he will be called by manager to discuss the issue. The guy tells him that he was in need of some loan. Then the manager takes a small interview of the guy and asks him hell lot of questions on the reasons he wanted the loan, how he will repay it and all stuff like that. If at all the manager is convinced then he will call the assistant to give some application form to the guy and tells him to fill it up and bring it back. The application form will be like a booklet and will contain so many things to be filled up which a lay man will be usually unaware of. So he leaves some fields unfilled and takes it back to bank. The manager looks down on the guy as if the guy is unaware of some basic thing. Finally the guy manages to fill it up and submits the form. As per rules the manager evaluates the capability of the guy to repay the loan and if satisfied sanctions it. The manager is supposed to give some points on each and every field and has to calculate the total. If the total is more than some fixed number then only he can sanction the loan. This total will be usually less than the minimum required for most of the applicants. So the application is rejected at that moment itself. If at all it crosses the limit then the application will be sent to next higher level where they can reject or approve the application without necessarily giving the rejection/approval comments. These are all the filtration steps a lay man has to undergo just for availing a loan. But if the person knows GM or DGM or some higher authority guy then all these steps are like a cakewalk. Everybody approves without any objection and the loan will be sanctioned within a span of a day or two. This was the case with bank. Now considering any educational institution we can say a student can be admitted to the best institution based on his father's capacity. If a guy brings some letter from influential person then his son/daughter can be admitted to the institution irrespective of the percentage of marks scored in their lower grades. What is the mistake of the person who is not having any influence? Some questions are never asked and some are never answered