Trickle-down corruption

The malaise persists at state and local-level governance

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to establish a corruption-free government in India would have come up against a reality check of sorts from the results of the 2019 India Corruption Survey conducted by Transparency International and Local Circles, a social media firm. Although the headline findings of the survey point to a five percentage point drop in corruption levels — 51 per cent of Indians admitted to paying a bribe this year against 56 a year ago — the figure for 2019 was higher than the 2017, which was 45 per cent. The survey covers 81,000 respondents in 248 districts