Poster campaign to check corruption in govt offices
In a move to deter government officials from demanding a bribe, volunteers of Janaagraha, a City-based NGO, will stick posters on the walls of as many as 300 government offices in the City.
After nearly a year-long struggle of pursuing with the State government, the ‘ipaidabribe’ campaign was finally approved by Chief Secretary S V Ranganath.
The brainchild of Subrahmanyam Ivatury, a techie who joined Janaagraha nine months ago, the ‘posters lagao corruption hatao’ campaign was approved by the office of the chief secretary on November 29, 2011.
The campaign was tried on a pilot basis at BBMP, BWSSB and land registration offices.
“On receiving encouraging results, we will extend the campaign to other government offices by pasting posters with an SMS alert number for citizens to send their feedback if asked to pay a bribe. This will act as a deterrent and help us map the most corrupt offices in the City,” said Ivatury.
So far ipaidabribe.com has received 15,500 complaints on the website stating that they had paid a bribe. While another 3,600 feedbacks suggested that they either did not pay a bribe or refused the demands of bribe from government officials.
Despite registering nearly 5,800 complaints by citizens of the police asking for bribes, the campaign organisers have not been able to include the local police stations in the first phase of the initiative.
“As the BBMP, BWSSB and the Stamps and Registrations Department have responded positively to our initiative, we will begin our campaign with them first. However, the initiative will later be extended to the police stations,” said Ramesh Ramanathan, Co-founder of Janaagraha.
The poster campaign will begin at police stations three weeks after the first phase, wherein 300 government offices will be included, said Ivatury.
The NGO will conduct a training programme at Mount Carmel College to create awareness about the campaign.
