Transparency brands Indian political parties and civil services as most corrupt

New Delhi, June 4 (ANI): Politicians and civil servants are rated to be the most corrupt persons according to the 2009 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) released by Transparency International, (TI) the global body monitoring corruption in governance.

The Indian chapter of the Transparency International, disclosed this here on Wednesday.

The Barometer, a global public opinion survey by the TI found that 58 percent of the Indian respondents identified politicians to be the single most corrupt individuals.

Civil servants and allied public officials were rated by 13 percent of respondents as the second most corrupt persons in the country.

According to S K Agarwal, Vice Chairman of the Indian chapter of TI, there many politicians and businessmen who have illegally stashed funds in tax havens and nine ministers in the present in the Cabinet have criminal cases pending against them.

"This time the number of MPs with criminal record has risen to 152. Among the ministers there are nine persons having a criminal charges against them. During elections there was a demand for the repartitioning of secret account funds to India and that is also reflected and most of the funds belong to politicians and the business community. These are the two important factors in the country," he added.

Anupama Jha, Executive Director of the Indian chapter of Transparency International noted that TI is working towards making the citizens aware of the tools to check corruption and the use of modern technology to achieve it.Some tools are Right to Information, Social Audits, Citizens Charter, e-governance and technologies which can reduce corruptions," she said.

The other institutions that were polled vis-?-vis corruption and breeding ground for it included the parliament, state legislatures, the public and private corporate sector and the mass media.

At the global level, the TI's Barometer, now in its sixth edition, surveyed 73, 132 people in 69 countries including 12 countries from Asia Pacific.

In India, the survey was conducted in five metros- Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore.

In the national capital, TI operates from the premises of Lajpat Bhavan, a non-governmental organisation engaged in varied social services such as education and health care. (ANI)