Transparency International, a Berlin based anti-corruption agency, has conducted a study called ‘Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index’ trends on corruption across the world. The study was conducted in 2011 and has ranked 183 countries based on the perceived levels of corruption in public sector. The ranks of various countries are based on the scores which are given on a scale of 0 to 10. The higher the score the lesser is the corruption and vice versa. The score of 10 suggests that the country is incorrupt and the score of 1 suggests that the country is highly corrupt. Any score less than 5 is considered to be bad.
As per this survey, Indian has scored 3.1 (3.3 in 2010 survey), ranking 95, indicating the increase in corruption levels in the country. This low score is mainly attributed to the big corruption scandals such as Commonwealth games and 2G spectrum scam that took place in 2011.
The country’s rank is lower than China (scored 3.6 points and ranked 75th). But our country’s rank is much better than Pakistan (134) and Nepal (154), considered as the most corrupt country in South Asia.
As per the corruptions Index, the top 5 countries which scored above 9 (least corruption) are – New Zealand (9.5), Denmark (9.4), Finland (9.4), Sweden (9.3) and Singapore (9.2).
The countries which scored around 1 (highly corrupted) are – North Korea (1.0), Somalia (1.0), Afghanistan (1.5), Myanmar (1.5) and Uzbekistan (1.6).
The study is based on the data collected from various sources, including business and country experts to assess the overall extent of graft.
Source: Hindustan Times