The Hindu
- Families living below poverty line pay to avail themselves of 11 basic services
- Kerala fares relatively well
- In Karnataka, 67% of the households have to bribe
Kolkata, Oct 9: Karnataka tops among the four southern States in the bribes that its citizens living below the poverty line had to pay to avail themselves of 11 basic services, including getting their relatives admitted to hospitals, getting their children admitted to schools, availing themselves of the public distribution system and on account of the national rural employment guarantee scheme.
While Kerala fared relatively well on this count not only among the four southern States but also on an all-India basis, it was revealed that taken together with Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, these four states paid bribes to the tune of Rs. 261 crore to get the basic services.
A study of corruption in India done by the Transparency International India for 2007 revealed that the BPL families in India paid a whopping Rs. 900 crore as grease money for these services during this period.
The report, compiled with the Centre for Media Studies focused on the BPL households mostly in rural areas covering 22,728 families between November 2007 and January 2008. The services included hospital, electricity, water supply, land records, banking and police.
It was found that while in Karnataka, 67 per cent of the BPL households had to bribe their way to get basic services, in Tamil Nadu the proportion was lower at 59 per cent but the actual payout at Rs. 97.6 crore was the highest among the four southern States.
In Andhra Pradesh 46 per cent BPL families paid bribes totalling Rs. 89 crore in 2007.
‘God’s own country’ Kerala had the lowest incidence of speed-money being paid. With only 27 per cent of its total 9.39 lakh BPL households in Kerala paying money totalling Rs. 9.8 crore to get basic or some need based services.
“None of the services covered in the study in Kerala had an alarming level of corruption” but getting a new electricity connection, a new ration card, or police help when needed did fall in the range of high corruption in Kerala.