A study conducted between 2004 and 2005 found that Indias driver licensing procedure was a hugely distorted bureaucratic process and allows drivers to be licensed despite their low driving ability through promoting the usage of agents. Individuals with high willingness to pay make a significant payment above the official fee and most of these extra payments are made to agents, who act as an intermediary between bureaucrats and applicants. The average licensee paid Rs 1080, approximately 2.5 times the official fee of Rs 450, in order to obtain a license. On average, those who hired agents had a lower driving ability, with agents helping unqualified drivers obtain licenses and bypass the legally required driving examination. Among the surveyed individuals, approximately 60% of the license holders did not take the licensing exam and 54% of those license holders failed an independent driving test. Agents are the channels of inefficient corruption in this bureaucratic driver licensing system, facilitating access to licenses among those who are unqualified to drive. Some of the failures of this licensing system are caused by corrupt bureaucrats who collaborate with agents by creating additional barriers within the system against those who did not hire agents. Professor Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari claim in their book Corruption in India: The DNA and RNA that the public officials in India may be cornering as much as Rs.921.22 billion ($18.42 billion), or 1.26 per cent of the GDP, through corruption. The book claims most bribery is in the transport industry, real estate and government delivered services. A 2011 KPMG study reports Indias real estate, telecommunications and government-run social development projects as the three top most corruption plagued sectors. The study found Indias defence, information technology industry and energy sectors are the most competitive and least corruption prone sectors. CMS India claims in its 2010 India Corruption Study report that socio-economically weaker section of the Indian society is most adversely affected by government corruption – these include the rural and urban poor. The study additionally claims that corruption perception nationwide has decreased between 2005 to 2010. Over the 5-year period, significantly more number of people from the middle class as well as the poorest segments of Indian society surveyed, in all parts of the India, claimed government corruption had dropped over time, and they had lesser direct experiences with demands for bribes. The table below compares the perceived anti-corruption effort across some of the major states in India. A rising index implies higher anti-corruption effort and falling corruption. According to this table, the states of Bihar and Gujarat have experienced significant improvements in their anti-corruption efforts, while the conditions have worsened in the state of Assam and West Bengal. Consistent with the results in this table, in 2012, a BBC News report claimed the state of Bihar has transformed in recent years to become the least corrupt state in India. State 1990–95 1996-00 2001–05 2006–10 Bihar 0.41 0.30 0.43 0.88 Gujarat 0.48 0.57 0.64 0.69 Andhra Pradesh 0.53 0.73 0.55 0.61 Punjab 0.32 0.46 0.46 0.60 Jammu & Kashmir 0.13 0.32 0.17 0.40 Haryana 0.33 0.60 0.31 0.37 Himachal Pradesh 0.26 0.14 0.23 0.35 Tamil Nadu 0.19 0.20 0.24 0.29 Madhya Pradesh 0.23 0.22 0.31 0.29 Karnataka 0.24 0.19 0.20 0.29 Rajasthan 0.27 0.23 0.26 0.27 Kerala 0.16 0.20 0.22 0.27 Maharashtra 0.45 0.29 0.27 0.26 U.P 0.11 0.11 0.16 0.21 Orissa 0.22 0.16 0.15 0.19 Assam 0.21 0.02 0.14 0.17 West Bengal 0.11 0.08 0.03 0.01
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 03:38:49 +0000
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