‘ 22,000cr bribe paid on roads every yr’

New Delhi: Corruption on Indian roads by enforcement agencies is an open secret. Now, a study conducted across a dozen major transport hubs covering over 1,200 truck drivers has revealed that in 60% cases, cops and officials extort money from truckers by stopping them without giving a reason. It has also revealed that around 90% of the bribe goes to policemen and transport department personnel.

The study was conducted by Centre for Media Studies and MDRA at transport hubs including Ludhiana, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Indore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Vijaywada, Bangalore and Chennai. Sharing the finding at an event which was attended by over two dozen truck drivers last week, Alok Srivastava, a director at CMS, said the situation was not improving. When he cited the example of illegal tokens, passes and stickers that these government agencies issue to allow vehicles to pass without checks, drivers said, “These are valid for a month.”

Srivastava said in many cases, government officials use holograms on bribe receipts to distinguish ‘original’ from ‘fake’ and use code words like ‘April Fool, May Day and Independence Day’. During the study, drivers also said that mobile phones were used to convey ‘links’. The study estimated the total bribe on roads to be close to Rs 22,000 crore every year.

The findings — based on the surveyors interaction with drivers, fleet operators and law enforcing agencies — also exposed how truck and commercial heavy vehicles were the punching bags for enforcement agencies. Drivers claimed that in 12% cases, authorities challan truckers even when there is no overloading.

They said harassment by police and transport department officials were the two major irritants for drivers on roads. While 77% of them felt police were the biggest irritant, 73% said it was harassment by transport department officials.

However, drivers and truck operators admitted they paid bribe for failing to meet norms or to get things done quickly. They conceded that the major reasons for paying bribe at transport department offices were getting registration and fitness certificates besides permits. On roads, truckers often pay bribe for lack of proper documents, overloading and rash driving. They also said by paying bribe, they avoided hassles in physical verification of goods.
Courtesy:
Dipak Kumar Dash TNN
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Scams Gulps Lives: Police, civic officials took Rs 20 lakh to clear killer building

Builder would have made Rs 20 cr from illegal structures
All it took was bribes of Rs 5 lakh each to four Thane officials
Lucky Developers, the promoters of the seven-floor Mumbra building that collapsed on Thursday killing 74 people, would have made a profit of Rs 20 crore from their three illegal buildings by paying a bribe of just Rs 20 lakh to the police and municipal officials.

Even more shockingly, sources said, it was municipal officials who gave the builders the idea to populate the building quickly to make it difficult for authorities to act on them. Police sources said Jameel Qureshi, one of the partners in the company, confessed that he paid a bribe of Rs 5 lakh each to a senior police inspector, a corporator and two municipal officials to get approval for his dubious file. All four are now arrested.

The police said they found a Qureshi’s diary that corroborated his confession. Mumbra police on Saturday arrested Qureshi from his home in Uttar Pradesh while the Thane crime branch arrested his partner Salim Shaikh a day before. Deputy Municipal Commissoner Deepak Chavan was also arrested in Thane. On Sunday six more people were arrested – Assistant Municipal Commissioner Babasaheb Andale, constable S Sayeed from Diaghar police station, local NCP corporator Hira Patil, TMC clerk Kisan Madke, collection agent Jabbar Patel and Afroz Ansari, who supplied the inferior building material.

According to the police who pieced together the sequence of events, Lucky Developers first contacted Jabbar Patel, a real estate agent. Patel put them in touch with policemen from the Diaghar police station and promised to get the no-objection certificate from the police.

Jabbar then contacted Afroz Ansari, who agreed to supply the building material at a very low cost. Patel then contacted Diaghar ASI S Sayeed and convinced him to arrange a meeting with senior officials. Sayeed was paid a mere Rs 4,000 to set up a meeting with Senior Inspector K Naik, who assured them that his men would not interfere with the construction process.

Once the police were in their bag, the developers went to work on Thane municipal officials.

Jabbar first contacted local corporator Hira Patel and convinced him to rope in senior TMC officials, for which Hira Patel got Rs5lakh.The corporator then approached head clerk Kisna Madke, who indirectly controls the flow of procedures at the corporation. Madke then introduced the developers to Assistant Municipal Comissioner Baba Saheb Andhale, who moved the file to his senior Deputy Municipal Commissioner Deepak Chauhan, who gave the final approval for the project. Both of them took Rs 5 lakh each. The police said the builders also promised these high officials one flat each in the building for the favours they rendered.

Thane Police Commissioner KP Raghuvanshi said the police has detailed documentary evidence to prove that the developers paid timely bribes to top officials so that they would turn a blind eye to the ongoing illegal constructions.

“As investigations proceed, more arrests are anticipated,” Raghuvanshi told Mumbai Mirror.

WHOSE LAND IS IT?
With an unprecedented toll of 74 in the Mumbra building collapse bringing the scanner on illegal constructions in the area, every department is trying to distance itself from the blame.

Forest officials said the land on which the ill-fated structure stood was not apart forest land.TheTMC,onthe other hand, said the land belonged to the forest department and that the corporation had nothing to do with it.

Forest officials said the land indeed belonged to them till 1978, but was “encroached upon by tribal people after that.” They said Lucky Developers bought the land from “private owners” in 2013 for Rs 40 lakh.

“It is tribal land and does not belong to the forest department,” said GT Chauhan, deputy conservator of forests, Thane. “Since forest land is adjacent to it, people assumed that this too was forest land. We have verified our records and it has come to light that the land belong to a private owner.”
Courtesy:
Nazia Sayed @timesgroup.com
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Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: Berlo: Bribes part of doing business

London: Defending Finmeccanica’s jailed ex-chief executive officer Giuseppe Orsi, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday said bribes were a necessary part of doing business globally.

“Bribes are a phenomenon that exist and it’s useless to deny the existence of these necessary situations,” he said in a TV interview. “These are not crimes. We’re talking about paying a commission to someone in that country. Why, because those are the rules in that country.”

He said probes by Italian prosecutors into contracts Italian firms sign abroad were a form of “economic suicide”.

“Everyone knows that as well as the tenders, agreements between governments are also involved,” Berlusconi said. Terming Orsi’s arrest “pure masochism”, he said it would hurt the prospects of other Italian businesses. “No one will negotiate with Eni or Enel or Finmeccanica anymore...” he said. “These are absurd moralisms,” he said. “If you want to make moralisms like that, you can’t be an entrepreneur on a global scale,” he said. AGENCIES
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