Raising a toast to our anti-bribe hero
This is one unique report that stands out from the 16,000-plus reports on our anti-bribery portal. The novelty in this case is the fact that the individual has done both things: paid a bribe as well as not paid a bribe!
To relieve you from your bafflement, here is a backgrounder to our anti-bribe hero, hailing from Hyderabad. After paying paid a bribe ten years ago, this physically challenged youngster was truly overcome with remorse. He made a self-pledge never to repeat it. He also managed to live up to his promise a decade down the line.
The mental strength of this Hyderabadi appears to be way above most of us. A polio attack when he was five months old resulted in his disability. He was keen in higher studies. It was his attempt to obtain a medical certificate for a scholarship under the government’s social welfare schemes that taught him corruption first-hand.
His trip to a hospital in this connection helped him understand that one had to bribe everyone, right from the attender to the doctor, to get any work one here. Hence, he ended up paying Rs 1,400 to the attender.
He confesses in his complaint: “It was the sheer necessity that has forced me to do so then (in 2002). If only there was a LOYAL and STRAIGHTFORWARD way to get this done I would have certainly chosen that.” ”(http://www.ipaidabribe.com/bribe-central/bribery-prove-disabled-so).
In 2011, he had to get his Railway concession certificate issued for the disabled but this time he did not pay a single rupee as bribe, This was despite undergoing the hardship of relentlessly pursuing various officicals to get it through honest means..
He attributes his new-found strength of character to his post-graduate education. “Education gave me the respect and strength to fight against unlawful activities. I now bribe no one...”
(By Rupsa Chakraborty)