This is a feather in the cap that the police will definitely want to dust away: the department was declared the “most corrupt” for the second consecutive year.

According to the figures available with the Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) tabulated till June this year, 66 policemen were caught red-handed while accepting bribe. The revenue department followed with 46 cases registered against its employees, whereas the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) stood third with cases registered against its 18 employees.

“We are taking serious note of the complaints we receive,” said Niket Kaushik, additional police commissioner, ACB. “But our job is not to interpret the statistics and pass judgments about departments,” he added.

In 2008, 119 policemen were arrested in 93 cases registered followed by employees from the revenue department and civic bodies.

Most of those arrested on charges of corruption from the police department were class III employees. A total 60 policemen of class III (below sub-inspector), two of class II (assistant police inspector) and four of class I (above police inspector) were caught red-handed while accepting bribe last year.

“Class III employees generally come in direct contact with common man. When they demand money, the victim makes complaints after which we trap them,” observed a police officer of ACB.

The officer said that one should not conclude that corruption is more in police department.

Of the 46 revenue department employees arrested on corruption charges, one was of class IV, 38 were class III, two class II and five were class I officers.

Neta’s of India – The most corrupt lot!

Transparency International recently released the Global corruption barometer for 2009 – it reveals that our Indian Neta’s for whom we cast our all important votes are the MOST corrupt lot, even more than Police and law officials !

Here are some of the findings of the survey

58% of the respondents in India singled out politicians as the most corrupt individuals.
13% of the respondents rated government officials as the second most corrupt.
10% of the respondents felt that Parliament and other law making bodies are corrupt.
9% of the respondents felt that the private sector – which was included in the survey for the first time – are corrupt.
Media and judiciary are corrupt in the view of 8% and 3% respondents respectively.
45% of people surveyed in India said the government is ineffective in addressing corruption.
I actually do not understand the last finding “45% of people surveyed in India said the government is ineffective in addressing corruption”.

Tell me, if the people who run the government are the most corrupt, then how in the hell can they do anything about corruption!!

Here is another interesting finding of the survey- Poorest families continue to be punished by petty bribe demands. Across the board, low-income people were more likely to be met with bribe demands than high-income ones.
http://trak.in/tags/business/2009/06/04/india…

India 5th most corrupt Asian economy: Survey

The Philippines is perceived as Asia’s most corrupt, while India as fifth corrupt economy by foreign businessmen according to a survey that also found countries were failing properly to tackle corruption.

Singapore (1.20) and Hong Kong (1.87) were seen as the cleanest economies, among the 13 Asian economies while China, Indonesia and Vietnam posted improvements, the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) said on Tuesday in a summary made available to AFP.

In a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 the worst. The Phillipines got 9.40, worsening sharply from its grade of 7.8 last year. India, though improved its score from 6.76 last year to 6.67 this year, was in the fifth in the ranking among 13 Asian economies.

PERC said the Indian government must accelerate reforms, warning that corruption can limit companies’ expansion plans.
http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.ph…

The most corrupt,  Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

Finally a confirmation of what is already known, but little is done about.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is the most corrupt body in the country, possibly the world. A recent Right to Information query has confirmed widespread graft in the municipal corporation with as many as 4,400 corruption cases pending against about 3,400 employees, who range from peons to junior engineers. Strangely they are still employed and continuing with their money making rackets.

Try and get a housing plan passed. Or get a completion certificate for a building….and you will have to deal with these corrupt government officials. Nothing moves without greasing their palms. Refer to my story of how buildings that openly flout all norms and a great show was made of knocking down portions, stand today all patched up, mocking the citizens of Delhi. The corporation has allowed 3000 unauthorised colonies to spring up, violating Delhi’s master plan. There are thousands of buildings which extend on to government land and this has been done in connivance of the junior engineers of the corporation, who are supposed to keep watch on the building activity in the city.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dominates the civic body having secured 164 seats in the 272-member MCD House in 2007. The Congress, had made a similar sweep in the 2002 polls.
Both the dominant parties are responsible for the state of things in the Capital.

The recent parliamentary elections in which the Congress swept all the seats in the Capital, has jolted the MCD into action. Check out the following item -
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Delhi/Poll-struck-MCD-jolted-into-action/articleshow/4572829.cms

Here is an old news item, but it tells you a lot of the attitude of those men and women responsible for overseeing the functioning of the corporation -
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/after-laptops-mcd-councillors-now-want-men/422418/

Consumers in Tripura, India were shocked to learn that their local hospital morgue was being used to store food. The morgue storage facility was being used to store a type of fish called hilsa. Storage costs and refrigeration costs can be expensive in India. The hot climate makes it essential for proper storage of fresh fish or the meat can go rancid.

Local fish merchants had invented a creative scheme of cutting storage costs by bribing hospital staff to allow them to store fish alongside dead bodies in the morgue. Corrupt hospital employees received small payments for helping fish merchants store their fish inside the morgue. Fish was stored along with human bodies in cooling boxes for a charge of about $0.20 per kilogram per night. This rate was much cheaper than private refrigeration storage in India.

This corruption was uncovered by a local reporter who posed as a fish merchant and was given a tour of the facility by corrupt hospital workers. These unsuspecting hospital staff outlined the entire operation to this undercover reporter. The reporter wrote a story which brought to light this deceitful practice carried on my unscrupulous fish merchants. The Indian government took steps to bring to justice those involved in the crime.

The Indian health minister called for an investigation and suspended one employee. An investigation hopefully will reveal all participants involved. Once complete, the investigation may lead to the arrest and prosecution of corrupt hospital staff as well as those fish merchants using this illegal service to store their fish.

•December 3: Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials unearth assets worth Rs 5 crore from Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Assistant City Planner L Bikshapathi including 26 residential plots.

•December 18: ACB arrests Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Town Planning Supervisor P Srinivas Das after it unearthed assets worth Rs 1.14 crore during raids at his residence and office besides Rs 29 lakhs in cash.

The magnitude of disproportionate assets amassed by engineers of government departments, particularly those of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has raised several eyebrows, even in the seasoned ACB.

What has come as a shock is that apart from the discovery of assets like land and houses, the usual suspects in such raids, these raids have thrown up hordes of the choicest luxury items. Collections of watches of top international brands like Rado and Gucci, gold-tipped Cross and Mont Blanc pens, chunks of gold, teak wood and marble stone godowns and multi-storied apartments are some of the assets owned by these government employees.

“It clearly shows the kind of lifestyle these officials were leading in spite of having a very limited legal income. They had become used to brazen indulgences in everything that is the most luxurious and expensive,” says ACB Director General of Police Girish Kumar.

•December 24: ACB unearths disproportionate assets worth Rs 3.32 crore during raids at the residence and offices of Irrigation Department Deputy Executive Engineer O Govind Reddy.

•December 28: Assets worth Rs 1.61 crore unearthed from Chief Engineer of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) Vivek Deshmukh, including a collection of luxury wrist watches.

Hyderabad is the most corrupt city in India, former director general of police T S Rao said at a seminar on `Corruption: its preventive measures’ organised by Raksha, an organisation floated to work for a corruption-free society, here on Sunday. Rao said India has two problems, one of them being terrorism and the other corruption. “We need a people’s movement to get rid of this problem and but Hyderabad is not responsive to such movements,” he said. Justice J Chalameshar of the Andhra Pradesh High Court lamented that corruption has become a way of life in the city. “Corruption is not just restricted to taking money, but even when you recommend someone, it is an act of corruption,” he said. Having stated the problem, the meeting took up solutions. “We should begin the cleansing of society from the ground level,” L V Subramanyam, vice-chairman and managing director of the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh, said. “When politicians are corrupt, the public punishes them by not giving them votes in the next election. But if bureaucrats and lower-rung officials are corrupt, then the people must take some action and complain to the Lok Ayukta,” Subramanyam said. B Prasad Rao, director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau and K G Shankar, law secretary of Andhra Pradesh also spoke at the function.

I don’t think so