Lucknow, July 9: They are aggressive and don’t take no for an answer. So hang ’em on the wall.

Meet Mayavati, the crusader against touts.

Desperate to refurbish the image of her government, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister has launched a poster war on “middlemen” — ever present in crowds near any government office who get things done for a “cut”.

The state administration today directed all district magistrates and block officers to paste posters of middlemen near all government offices, especially in rural areas, “to expose and eradicate their well-entrenched links and operations”.

The move, government sources said, is mainly aimed at protecting the poor from exploitation by these people described by a website as “irritatingly aggressive, not courteous, (and who) don’t take a polite no as an answer”.

The warning is meant for foreign tourists, but what about those who don’t have access to the Net? Precisely why the posters are being printed, said a source. Rural development minister Daddu Prasad admitted that touts were a menace. “Yes, they are in league with some subaltern members of babudom who extort money from the poor,” he said.

The matter came up yesterday at a review meeting on welfare schemes. Prasad said chief development officers in each district and district magistrates had been directed to launch a drive against corruption and get FIRs lodged against middlemen involved in housing schemes like Indira Awas Yojna and Mahamaya Awas Yojna.

“We have asked the officials to paste posters of these middlemen on walls in villages and blocks so that corruption can be checked,” the minister added.

Social workers said it was a well-intentioned move, but pointed out that it could leave the intended beneficiaries confused as many poor villagers, most of them unlettered, depend on touts to access welfare schemes.

Dhaniram Prajapati, a villager in Daulatpur, just 30km from Lucknow, agreed. “I couldn’t have got my name registered as a National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme beneficiary without the help of a tout who charged me Rs 100,” said the 35-year-old.

This is exactly what the Mayavati government wants to put an end to, minister Prasad explains. “This must stop,” he said.

Sources in the bureaucracy said it was an accepted “fact” that touts run banks and police stations. Their rates are fixed: for a bank loan, 2 per cent of the loan amount; for an FIR, Rs 3,000; and for clearing pensions, Rs 500.

BSP insiders said the ruling party would organise awareness camps at all blocks to tell people not to take the help of touts.

Social worker Sandeep Pandey said it was a positive step. “Touts are a menace in every district,” said the Magsaysay award winner. “But the government should first try to root out corruption in the offices of ministers, ruled by touts, to set an example.”

Easier said than done, said an IAS officer in Lucknow, who didn’t want to be named. “The nexus between clerks and touts is so deeply entrenched it would need a revolution to break this,” he said.

Others said the poster drive was more a gimmick as the central government is “breathing down” the Mayavati government’s neck over “rampant irregularities in implementing job schemes”.

Government sources said there were at least five touts for every department in a block development office, and their number could easily cross 50,000 in a big state like Uttar Pradesh.

“They obviously operate with political patronage. You can see them changing political colours with every change of government,” said an NGO official in Allahabad.