'BPL families paid bribes for benefits'

To avail the benefits of UPA government's flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, nearly 10 lakh BPL households had to pay bribes to the tune of Rs 71.5 million last year, a new survey has said.

The 'India Corruption Study 2007', brought out by Transparency International India (TII) and Centre for Media Studies (CMS) found that about one-third of below poverty line households in the country bribed officials to avail various public services -- from police to PDS.

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The survey, which covered 22,728 households in all states and Union Territories, said across the country, around seven per cent or 9.6 lakh rural BPL households paid bribes to get benefits of NREGS, half of them for getting themselves registered as willing to under the scheme.

The total amount paid as bribes in the past year is estimated to be 71.5 million.
Around 47 per cent of the BPL households surveyed felt that corruption exists in the department. Thirty-one per cent held the opinion that the corruption level has in fact increased over the past one year.

The TII-CMS study found that 14 per cent of the poor households either paid bribe or used a 'contact' to get the benefits of NREGS.Eight in 10households believed that there has been no change in situation or it has deteriorated as far as redressal of their grievances related to the NREGS is concerned.