Recently i read few online posts on www.ipaidabribe.com, infact www.ipaidabribe.com has received accolades not only from India but from outside india also…Some countries have officially requested the www.ipaidabribe.com to share the script as they wish to start the similar website in their own country to tackle the issue of corruption.
I also came to know that 90% traffic on www.ipaidabribe.com is direct traffic and only 10% traffic is through search engines, which imply lot of positive word of mouth & media attention/coverage helped to pull visitors. Besides India, www.ipaidabribe.com is very popular in Pakistan also, where it is ranked 32,210. Site has a relatively good traffic rank in the cities of Bangalore (#9,673), Lahore (#14,288), and Delhi (#30,444). The data is quite interesting but unfortunate part is that approx 57% of visits to the site consist of only one page view i.e. Bounce Rate, which means these visitors only browse single page on website (Source: www.alexa.com). According to me, High Bounce rate implies that visitors could not find site interesting enough to browse further or may be content is not appealing enough. We will check the reason for same.
Whenever any visitor open a website, he open the page with certain expectation in his mind i.e. he has certain thoughts or queries in his mind & he is looking for answer of same. Suppose, i open a News Article that RBI kept key rates unchanged then my thought process at that time was to find answer, why the rates not reduced as expected and what will be possible impact on economy…Similar when i opened www.ipaidabribe.com my expectation as a visitor was to seek some solution for problem of corruption.
We all know there is a problem but what is the solution, On www.ipaidabribe.com i cud only find database of problem listing but cud not get the answer on how to resolve the issue…Secondly, it seems that www.ipaidabribe.com is only doing a data mining job to collect the information from citizens but how it is going to impact me as a visitor of site or as a citizen of country in other words how it is helpful for me. Though i cud find a section “I don’t want to pay bribe” but in this section also i cud only find the story of bribes, As i understand the objective of this section was to share experiences, how people got their work done without paying bribe but it became just another section to report bribery due to lack of proper communication or understanding.
Another observation is that many people had just exaggerated their story on bribe amount & went overboard. It can be ascertained from the fact that as on June 20, 2012 & as reported on home page of www.ipaidabribe.com, there are 20166 reports on website & amount paid in bribe is 46.59 Cr which implies average bribe paid is whooping Rs 23107 per reported case. It is very hard to believe & i could not digest this fact….Situation is bad in India but not that bad that average amount bribed is 23k per case until unless all the industrialists or business houses have shared their experience. Some of the cases looks totally cooked up, i will refer to one case in which a person mentioned that he paid 55k bribe for registration of a flat in society…It seems this person is just cooking up the story to sensationalize the same…It is one of the case and their are many many more.
In many cases, i observed people just paid bribe becoz they are at fault & they are complaining as if they are victims…If we start this practice then none of Govt authorities will be able to do their duty..If we are paying a bribe for our convenience then we are also equally at fault along with Govt official who is demanding bribe just to quote a case wherein traffic police caught a person who was not carrying original RC, Driving License, Pollution Certificate etc & then he claiming that he paid bribe and is being victimized…I don’t know what to say on this, He paid bribe for his convenience….Any amount we pay to cover up our own fault or for breaking the law, is actually a penalty we are paying for our convenience…We are victimized only in those cases where we are not at fault and despite being law abiding citizen, we are forced to pay bribe. Another case where apartment owners paid bribe to builder for getting Khata & the complainant is complaining that bribe is paid for Khata and as if registrar has demanded bribe but i will categorize it as bribe to builder not to Registrar office.
According to reports i think RTO, Registrar office & Police are most corrupt departments but again my experience is things are not that bad as projected by the people on www.ipaidabribe.com.
I am just listing down what i liked, disliked and my suggestion to make www.ipaidabribe.com more relevant for users
1. Good database for analysis.
2. “Honest Official” section is quite powerful & motivating. The website can send Note of Appreciation to such officials.
1. Posts are not verified before posting i.e. to check authenticity
2. People exaggerated the incidents
3. No solution provided, only problem listing
4. People breaking rules or at fault being shown as victim of corruption
Suggestion:
1. www.ipaidabribe.com should collect the data and send it to authorities for necessary action i.e. steps to eradicate corruption rather only reporting about corruption
2. All data can be segregated in category wise e.g. RTO, Registrar Office, Police etc so that it is easy for visitor to search for relevant incidents. Though in search section, there was category parameter but it was not working & i cud not find what categorization is provided..i checked on all 3 popular browsers.
3. Segregate Genuine and Non Genuine cases i.e. All Non Genuine cases to be removed e.g. if i broke red signal then instead of projecting myself as victim, I should have paid fine and abide by the Law of Land & at first place i should not have jumped red signal as by doing so i am putting others life also at risk.
Genuine cases are where in people were unnecessary harassed for bribe like i have all documents for khata but still i am forced to pay bribe then it is genuine case of bribery and harassment.
4. Solution centre: A section on how to deal with problem of corruption & people can suggest solutions e.g. in order to avoid being harassed i can register my property online in bangalore
5. Publish Interview of Honest officials
Last but not my request to visitors of www.ipaidabribe.com, We should not sensationalize the topic and act responsibly while posting on public forum as any wrong info can create negative sentiments among general public. We should project correct picture & share right perspective with readers…
Things are not that bad & we all can improve the situation, if we decide that we will abide by Law of Land and will not pay any bribe.
Copyright © 2011-2012 Nitin Bhatia. All Rights Reserved.
It is a fact that bribe paid to police officials for not having documents is not victimization but it is also a fact that the amount paid for anyone’s pocket is not a penality, if the amount paid is not deposited in Govt. treasury.
Regarding suggestion no. 1 it is intimated that the complaints received along with complete documents in PMO/CM Office or grievances cell are forwarded to concerned departments/officer by whom the complainant has already been tortured/victimized,
The suggestions proposed are very appreciable and can solve the problem if NGOs working against corruption constitute the social network and take up this matter with local officers directly involved with ordinary persons grievances.