COPS' BRIBERY * WORLDWIDE

* India - Cops turn robbers on Indian's roads

Highway check-point Policemen looting bribes from truckers worth US$4.5 billion annually

Mumbai,India -The Asia Times, by Raja Murthy -Aug 27, 2009: -- India's planned US$70 billion road infrastructure investment over the next three years, and the country's growing heavyweight global status, are being undermined from within - by highway check-point policemen looting bribes from truckers worth a remarkable US$4.5 billion annually... None of the world's other trillion-dollar economies (the United States, Britain, China, Japan, Germany, Russia, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain and Canada) faces this magnitude of police corruption... Police corruption benefits from the scale of India's road transport, which hauls three-quarters of national freight... Multiply the estimated four million trucks operating in India's highways by the estimated $10 per truck daily bribe, and we get the astounding $40 million daily bribe figure. The Berlin-based Transparency International mildly terms the corruption in India's road transport system as "highly institutionalized"... So annually, the Kolkata traffic police, road transport officials and everyone upwards, including presumably politicians in this pyramid of corruption, illegally earns a conservative $30 million annually - and this is just one metropolis... Take into account other major Indian cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, as well as about 5,500 smaller cities and towns, and the Transparency International annual figure of $4.5 billion that India's cops loot from truckers appears considerably understated... According to Transparency India, truckers pay bribes at every phase of their business, starting from getting their vehicles registered with the Road Transport Office and obtaining road-worthiness certificates and paperwork to obtain and renew interstate and national permits... Other ready-made excuses for harassment include paying tolls, taxes for bringing goods into an area and sales tax... How quickly and effectively Manmohan's government can stop policemen from robbing the nation's road users depends on how much of this multi-billion dollar loot reaches politicians high up in national and state governments...- SEE VIDEO: Human Rights Watch says India's policing system facilitates and even encourages abuses - (Photo from indianexpress: Police bribery)