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Bribes
paid for passports while leaving India
75
p.c. of Telugu NRIs not aware of RTI Act |
HYDERABAD: A
survey conducted by the Association for India’s Development (AID)
among the Non Resident Indian delegates who attended the just concluded
Telugu Association of North America’ (TANA) conference revealed that
81 per cent of them had paid bribes at various stages in India.
A booth
set up by the AID at TANA conference as part of its anti-corruption
campaign highlighted the results of a survey conducted on July 7. The
NRIs said they had bribed the authorities for getting International
Drivers Permit and passports while leaving India. At the time of re-entering
India, they had to pay bribes at the Customs and during their stay in
India for getting land records.
Shocking
feature
A shocking
feature of the survey was that 75 per cent of the NRls at the TANA conference
have not heard of the Right to Information (RTI) Act that increased
transparency and accountability of governance in India. An NRI delegate
highlighted how one of his family members suffered delay in payment
of pension as he refused to pay bribe. But they were pleasantly surprised
when the AID volunteers informed them that the RTI Act has been successfully,
used by common people in India to get pensions, ration cards etc without
paying bribes. They informed the gathering that the Indian embassy in
Washington DC has begun to accept RTI applications.
The TANA
conference also appealed to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara
Reddy to recognise the pending 805 tribal villages as scheduled ones
under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. In a letter sent to him,
the delegates said recognition of these villages was kept pending though
the process had begun in 1980. Andhra Pradesh lagged behind other States
such as Maharashtra. Rajasthan and Bihar.
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