8 charts that show that corruption is still a way of life in India

The most common reason for paying a bribe to a government official is that ‘it was the only way to get work done’ and is. If it hadn’t been, citizens claim that it was the only way to fast-track their work. Without the bribe, it would have taken significantly longer.

The primary mode of bribing officials is still cash, but one-third of the citizens have paid bribes indirectly through agents. The incidence of ‘agents’ coming into the picture has shown a 5% jump over 2018 when only 25% of the respondents reported paying through a third-party.

Government officials are accepting bribes even in offices that are equipped with functional CCTVs. This is despite the fact that the Prevention of Corruption Act 2018 entails seven years of imprisonment or a fine or both if anyone is caught giving a bribe.

The police department, property registration, municipality, and transport are the top departments where bribes are being demanded. This shows that even though centralised services may have reduced corruption, most citizen services are still subject to bribery.

In 2018, the Indian government identified corrupt employees in the Finance Ministry and relieved them of their duties.

The government repeated this same exercise this year with the tax department.

It needs to continue to do this in order to reduce the incidence of corruption and set a precedent of intolerance against bribery, the report said. Transparency International India also recommends that the same level of vigilance should be employed by state governments to reduce corruption at their level.

An obstacle in the implementation of anti-corruption laws at a state and local level is that there is no functional hotline to report the demands of bribes. Even if a citizen wanted to expose that they were being extorted for money in exchange for getting their work done, they wouldn’t know where to go.

Citizens don’t seem to have any faith in the existing system to curb corruption. Most of them report that the state and local governments haven’t taken any steps to improve the current state of affairs. Others report that even though some movement has happened, it hasn’t done much to improve the situation — bribery is still prevalent.