Corruption perception in India on the wane: Study

NEW DELHI: The government may be facing an unprecedented barrage of corruption charges and an embarrassing Lokpal bill stir, but India Corruption Study, 2010, reveals that there is a marked decline in the percentage of people who feel graft has increased since 2005. Centre for Media Studies has conducted the survey.

Rural population across 12 states — three of them Congress-ruled — was surveyed. The foreword has been written by NAC member Aruna Roy and Lok Satta president Jayaprakash Narayan, who has been pushing for the exclusion of judiciary from Lokpal ambit.

Compared to the survey results of 2005, overall percentage of rural households that paid bribe had halved 28% against 56%, but in states like Chhattisgarh (55%), Bihar (52%), Kerala (46%) and Maharashtra (40%) the proportion still remained fairly high.

The study claimed that in the last one year, Rs 4,718 million had been paid by rural households in the surveyed states to access the services covered.

The survey was carried out in 9,960 households in 664 gram panchayats across 2,000 villages . They were asked about their perception of overall corruption and also in four services — public distribution system (PDS), school education, hospitals and water supply.

It was found that 11.5% respondents had paid a bribe for PDS, hospitals (9%), schools (5.8%) and water supply (4.3%). "On an average in a year, a rural household paid around Rs 164 as bribe to avail of the four public services," the study said.

The states where the perception of corruption, according to the study, remains high are Chhattisgarh (66%), Bihar (66%), Kerala (59%), Rajasthan (54%) and Uttar Pradesh (49%).

Left-ruled Tripura had only 19% respondents sharing this impression. While in West Bengal only 33% felt instances of graft were on the rise. Overall , only 45% respondents felt corruption has increased against 70% in the earlier edition of the survey.

Significantly, more than 40% of rural households, belonging to OBC and SC categories , felt that the level of corruption has increased in public services.

The study points to a disturbing trend that while there has been a 10% reduction in the number of rural households , who access PDS supplies though as per government figures the off take of PDS food grains is 90%.

It asks a crucial question whether leakage and diversion of PDS food grain to the open market continues despite strictures from the Supreme Court, CAG and several interventions by the media and civil society. In PDS, too, Bihar and Chhattisgarh lead the pack with 62.1% and 57.6%, respectively.