• I Paid A Bribe
• 13 years ago
• 3359 views

Bangalore South Food Office - bribe was paid to collect ration card due to lack of documents

• Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs
• Issue of Ration Card
• Paid INR 50

I was not directly affected, but I noticed that 1-2 people did not have electricity bill to show at the time of collecting ration card, and with payment of some money, that was overlooked and the cards was issue. The receiver of the ration card seemed genuine etc (he had ID proof but had forgotten to bring electricity bill), but still the act of receiving bribe happened. The officials there (including the senior officers) are callous, and do not answer citizen's queries properly. Citizens are made to wait for hours in long queues, and though the turn comes, the citizen's work does not get done, and they are asked to come after 3 months for some work request which they should accept now itself (e.g., ration card corrections). Also, even though ration card corrections come under Sakala scheme, I am not sure if the GSC acknowledgement numbers are issued by the food office (if they even accept an application in the first place). Apart from stopping bribes, please make the process transparent - have standard application formats and standard ack/receipts that contain GSC numbers, so citizens can rely on Sakala scheme to get ration card corrections done.