Corruption in India

Corruption in India is an issue that adversely affects its economy. The country owes its stunted development largely to the rampant corruption. A study conducted by the Transparency International in 2005 shows that more than 62% of Indians had a first hand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully. In a study conducted in 2008, Transparency International reported that about 40% of Indians had first hand experience of paying bribes or using contacts to get jobs done in public offices.

In 2016, India was ranked 79th out of 178 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, compared to its neighbors Bhutan (27th), Bangladesh (145th), Myanmar (156th), China (79th), Nepal (131st), Pakistan (116th) and Sri Lanka (95th). The largest contributors to the corruption are entitlement programs and social spending schemes enacted by the Indian government. Examples include Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and National Rural Health Mission. Other sources of corruption include India's trucking industry which is forced to pay billions of rupees in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on its interstate highway.

The media has widely published allegations of corrupt Indian citizens stashing millions of rupees in Swiss banks. Swiss authorities, however, have denied these allegations, which has now been proven in 2015-2016. The Indian media is mainly owned by corrupt politicians and industrialists who also play a major role in most of these scams, thus misleading public with wrong information and using media for mud-slinging their political and business opponents.

The causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, complicated tax and licensing systems, numerous government departments each with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly of government controlled institutions on certain goods and services delivery, and the lack of transparent laws and processes. There is significant variation in the level of corruption and in the government's efforts to reduce corruption across India.

Corruption in India is a problem that has serious implications for both protecting the rule of law and ensuring access to justice. As of December 2009, 120 of India's 524 parliament members were accused of crimes, under India's First Information Report procedure wherein anyone can allege another of committing a crime. Many of the biggest scandals since 2010 have involved very high level government officials, including Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers, such as in the 2G spectrum scam (₹1.7 lakh crore (US$25 billion)), the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam (₹70,000 crore (US$10 billion)), the Adarsh Housing Society scam, the Coal Mining Scam (₹1.86 lakh crore (US$28 billion)), the Mining Scandal in Karnataka and the Cash for Vote scam.

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