Guest post by HARSH TANEJA

The Government of India has recently gifted its bureaucrats a privilege. The state will reimburse the total cost of medical treatment abroad for the three highest civil services officers (the IAS, IPS and IFS).

And this entitlement is not limited to procedures that cannot be carried out in India.

According to this newspaper report, these officers and their families can decide to go abroad for even routine procedures such as bypass surgeries. A privilege that is unfair, undemocratic and borders on institutionalized corruption. Here’s why.

First, the most obvious argument pointed out in the newspaper article itself, is the huge expenditure to the exchequer. However that to me is the beginning of why this is problematic. The following two concerns are perhaps more grave. Continue reading Let taxpayers pay for ‘our’ treatment abroad, while they rot in government hospitals: Harsh Taneja →