Talk of extracting responsible social behaviour at gunpoint — almost. The Gwalior district administration has decided to use the widespread, macho attachment to guns in the heart of the Chambal badlands to force people to pay their power bills. Don’t cough up, lose your gun licence.

“I have provided the details of (arms) licence holders to the power company. It will get back to us with the names of the defaulters,” Gwalior Collector Akash Tripathi told The Indian Express. The fear of losing their licences will force people to pay, believes the administration.

There are 25,000 active gun licences in Tripathi’s district. Each of the neighbouring districts of Morena and Bhind has about the same number of licence holders. Shivpuri and Sheopur have around 10,000 licences each.

Guns have traditionally been the ultimate status symbol in the ravines of the Chambal, and men frequently go to ridiculous lengths to acquire an arms licence. Queues for new licences are long everywhere.

This area is also notorious for its power bill defaulters. People often refuse to pay as a matter of right and practice, and sometimes assault dues collectors who show up at their homes. Outstandings in Gwalior alone have crossed Rs 170 crore.

Using the local love of guns to attain societal goals is not a new strategy in these parts.

The Shivpuri administration recently came up with the highly original idea of offering gun licences to men who opted for sterilization.

“The idea clicked, though less than 100 people actually underwent vasectomies for guns,” said Shivpuri Collector Manish Kumar Shrivastava. He conceded it was a problem convincing people to swap what they believed was their virility with a mere gun. NGOs were unenthusiastic about the idea, and no other district took it up.

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