`Say no to corruption`

Everybody talks about corruption but only a few fight against it. Gaurav Bakshi is among them.

Gaurav started a small but unique campaign called 'Choosna Band Karo' to fight against corruption, which has now turned into a big movement across the city.

How it began
Gaurav Bakshi and his father Wg Cdr (retd) B S Bakshi were physically assaulted at the registrar's office in Noida on November 19 last year when they refused to pay a bribe for the adoption procedure of Gaurav's five-year-old stepdaughter. From then, he started a campaign to protest against corruption.

Need of the hour
"Revolution is not an apple which falls when it's ripe. You have to make it fall." Words of Che Guevara justify the need of the hour, he says.
"It's not as easy as it seems to be. The registrar had asked for a bribe of `6,000, which I refused. The registrar, therefore, refused to give the certificate. I decided to protest outside the registrar's office and when we were demonstrating peacefully near a parking lot, the Noida Police led by a DSP all of a sudden charged at us. We were threatened by them but we never stopped our protest," said Gaurav Bakshi, a resident of Sector 21, Noida and an Indian representative of a US-based multi-national company.

Family support
"Whatever I did is for my family and my family has also supported me always. Especially my wife and my father encouraged me to fight against corruption. If they hadn't supported me then I wouldn't have started this campaign," Bakshi added.

Part of NAG
He is also a part of Noida Action Group (NAG) which fights against small nefarious activities in the city.
"Recently, we visited the Regional Transport Office (RTO) in Sector 33, Noida to meet officials and discussed the day to day problems faced by citizens. The problem was that residents were charged `3,620 for the registration of a seven-seater taxi whereas the actual fee is `3,600 only for which, a receipt is issued. The rest of `20 goes to the pocket of the cashier. Citizens wandered from one window to another for lack of proper display of signboards but after our initiative, authorities took this as a serious issue and looked into the matter seriously," said Gaurav Bakshi.

Immense public support
'Choosna Bandh Karo' organised its first peaceful march on January 15 in front of Sector 24 police station and Sector 33 registrar office. The protest was against the Noida Sub Registrar Office's corrupt practices and the lack of police action against them.
This was the first protest they did but after that they organised many such protests against corruption in Noida. An online campaign has also been started on Facebook which is now supported by more than 10,000 followers across the city.


--Madhuri Balodi