Delhiites rate police as most corrupt department: Survey

At a time when Delhi government is involved in a tussle with the Centre on control over Delhi Police, a recent survey of households in Delhi has said that police were the most corrupt of all the public services in city.

The percentage of households which reported paying bribe to police, which comes under Central government, was 39 per cent, highest among all services provided in Delhi, including those by the state government and the municipal corporations.

Even some other services provided by the Central government, such as Railways and passport, were rated worse than the services provided by Delhi government and municipal authrorities.

The survey conducted by CMS-India Corruption Study (CMS-ICS) had a sample size of 1,501 households representing different socio-economic strata of the population in nine districts of Delhi.

It captured people’s perception and experience with 15 public services governed by Central government, state government and the municipal corporations such as police, LPG, Railways, driving licence, electricity, water and building plan sanction.

Bribes paid

The survey also estimated the amount paid by them as bribe to avail these during the previous one year. The data was collected during the third week of July and first week of August this year.

On an average, households in Delhi paid around Rs 2,165 as bribe during the last one year to police, for reasons varying from getting the complaint/FIR registered to allowing vending carts along roadside.

In terms of general perception, around 39 per cent households feel that coruption has decreased in services provided by the Centre as opposed to 22 per cent who thought it has increased.

On the other hand, a large percentage of households (45) felt that the level of corruption has gone down in Kejriwal-run Delhi government in the last one year, while 20 per cent believed it has increased.

The study also observed that the socially and economically marginalised population sufer more due to the corrupt practices in public services.

Overall around 29 per cent of the households in Delhi had to pay bribe at least once during the last 12 months and nearly 45 per cent of them belong to the poor strata of  society.