Bengaluru: Ipaidabribe.com, an online initiative to crowd source corruption reports in India has registered 1 crore visits, signifying the growth of strong anti-corruption voices in the country.
I Paid A Bribe (IPAB) Bengaluru is the largest online crowd-sourced anti-corruption platform in the world. It uses a crowd-sourcing model to collect bribe reports and to build a repository of corruption-related data across government departments.
Since its launch on August 15, 2010, I Paid A Bribe (IPAB) has recorded over 47,000 bribe reports amounting to over Rs 280 crore from more than 600 cities in India.
“As of July 2015, IPAB has partnered with non-profits and transparency organisations in 25 other countries to create similar IPaidabribe.com sites and has initiated an international coalition named - Crowdsourcing Against Corruption Coalition,” stated in a press release from Janaagraha.
“IPAB receives reports from all over the country. Most of the Paid Bribe reports have been received from Bengaluru, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai. We also receive reports from small towns,” the release further stated.
IPAB receives 3 kinds of reports; Paid Bribe, Did Not Pay Bribe, Honest Officer. Citizens post their reports in any of these three categories and the reports are sent to the respective departments for action on the complaint. Citizens can either prefer to be anonymous or give their name in the report.
Success Stories
Many users have used IPAB as a platform to get erring officers to book. Manik Taneja, a sports enthusiast, was asked to cough up a hefty bribe by a customs official at Bengaluru airport for a Kayak he purchased from US.
After a persistent argument, Manik paid the bribe, and then wrote about this incident on IPAB. His story, and his cooperation with Custom officials, saw the official being put under temporary suspension.
Chennai's Shubham Khandelwal got a shock when he went to get his Aadhar card. Instead of having over the receipt, the officer on duty asked for a steep bribe. Not willing to let the official go, Shubham wrote a complaint on Ipaidabrbibe.com. Disciplinary action was initiated against the erring official
