Despite the extensive awareness and prevailing online technology mechanisms, the state of Tamil Nadu has distressingly revealed the embarrassing truth that about 62% of people have bribed the government officials to obtain the work and to process their requirements.

The awful revelation came to the spotlight from the survey conducted by Transparency International which surveyed by meeting the people directly in October and November this year. According to the survey, nearly two-thirds of the respondents that make about 62%, have agreed that they bribed the government officials to process their works and the survey has underlined that the current year survey recorded high compared to the last year that stood at 52% during the same period.

In line with the appalling state, the numbers also reported to be higher than the latest national average of one out of two people who bribed the officials for availing government services. Despite having an online registration process, the issues and documents related to the property and land matters rank top in the state by accounting with 41% of total bribery and municipal and corporation works occupy the second spot with 19% of bribes followed by bribing police officials. 

In its report, Transparency International has said that the survey was conducted at the state level, between October 1st and November 15th, and about 5,700 responses were received from Tamil Nadu in which 62% of citizens who took part in the survey have agreed that they have paid a bribe in the government offices to get their work done. Out of this percentile, about 35% of people admitted that they have bribed the officials several times both directly and indirectly while the rest 27% paid a bribe once or twice.

About 15% of people have accepted that they paid money to the police at least once and this largely reported with the traffic police department. These people have allegedly bribed the traffic police officials instead of paying fine for not wearing a helmet and for violating the signal by citing that the bribe is less than the fine imposed on them. The reports say that bribery has its branches in all the government departments including the electricity board where the respondents of the survey have revealed that they had paid a bribe for the electricity board worker to have the transformer repaired and the power supply restored in a particular time.