The latest Centre for Media Studies survey on corruption across the country throws up some interesting results. Not surprisingly, in most sectors, the proportion of households that thinks there is corruption has gone up. What's interesting, however, is that the number of households that have actually paid bribes is lower "" in the case of electricity, for instance, just 21 per cent of households paid bribes in 2005, against 63 per cent who felt there was corruption. Even more interesting, just 10-35 per cent of households were aware that there was a redressal mechanism is these services, as a result of which the usage of public services was poor "" just 53 per cent of all people used government hospitals and the figure wasn't much different for those earning below Rs 2,000 per month. In states like Himachal Pradesh, where there was less corruption, the usage of public services was higher.
