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REALTY SPEAK

“Because we’re having too many people getting in and out of our apartment block that we seem to be losing control of who is authorised and who isn’t,” he says. “Also, most of the time, we see the driver sitting in the car and watching other residents’ movements. When drivers change too frequently, do you think we can hold anybody responsible?” I don’t find it easy to answer his question.

If you come to think of it, a common affliction that affects drivers employed by most residents is underemployment. The site www.investorwords.com defines the word as “a situation in which a worker is employed, but not in the desired capacity, whether in terms of compensation, hours, or level of skill and experience”. While not technically unemployed, the underemployed are often competing for available jobs, it adds.

So, it is not unusual for the driver to be viewed as Man Friday to help in anything ranging from fetching vegetables to watering the plants. No job is mean; but when skills mismatch, we’re only asking for trouble.

A few years back a crime that shook Mumbai-ites was a murder in a Borivili apartment complex. A 45-year-old housewife, Sandra Clinton Franklin, was stabbed to death by a sacked driver and his gang around 4.30 p.m. sometime after her daughter Stephanie left the compound to attend classes.

When the incident occurred, her husband Clinton was away on a ship, based in Singapore. It was only two weeks earlier that Clinton had fired the driver for rash driving and banging the car. When the driver’s mother had come, requesting reinstatement of her son, Clinton had said he didn’t need a driver and gave some money instead.

After the killing and looting, when two of the culprits were fleeing with the booty and bloodstained knife in an auto, they got nabbed by the police, all within 20 minutes of the murder, in one of the quickest actions. Three other accomplices were cornered elsewhere in the city.

News reports say that it was a smart autorickshaw driver who gestured to cops at a routine nakabandi to check the vehicle, as if to hand over the criminals on a platter. There are good drivers too, after all.

As rear-view mirrors caution that objects may be nearer than they seem, so too dangers may be lurking nearer than they seem to be. This is not to frighten you of hiring a driver, or sacking a bad driver. Only to caution that it is advisable to screen the drivers before engaging them, and to be doubly careful when sacked staff return to your premises. And that applies to hiring servants and watchmen too.

Find time to visit www.delhipolice.nic.in/home/servant.htm. It is about ‘servant verification scheme’ of the Delhi Police. “A large number of immigrant servants and floating labourers, chowkidars, plumbers, electricians and other casual labourers come to Delhi/ New Delhi in search of employment.

Crime committed by this class of population in Delhi constitutes a big problem,” says the intro. “Recently some domestic servants have been found responsible for even heinous crimes like murders,” it adds.

A format for verification is provided in www.delhipolice.nic.in/home/servant-f.htm, and for the convenience of employers, beat constables do the checking process.

Residents’ welfare associations are requested to help the police in getting bulk verifications done.

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