Govt officials propose EMI plans to pay bribes to reduce 'financial burden'

GANDHINAGAR: While accepting bribes is illegal, government officials in Gujarat have come up with a new way to promote corruption. According to a Times of India report, corrupt officials have facilitated the payment of bribes in instalments for those who do not have money to pay it in one go.

Accepting bribes in the form of EMIs, akin to bank loans, has become common among government officials in Gujarat. In March, government officials demanded a bribe of Rs 21 lakh from a mobile shop owner in Ahmedabad in an SGST fake billing scam. To reduce the financial strain, the officials asked him to pay Rs 2 lakh rupees per month. In another similar incident, a police officer of the cybercrime unit demanded a bribe of Rs 10 lakh and asked a person to pay it in four installments.

According to the report, a deputy sarpanch and taluk member of Surat demanded a bribe of Rs 85,000 from a farmer. Considering the financial difficulty of the farmer, he also suggested paying Rs 35,000 in advance and the rest in three equal instalments. An official of the Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau told The Times of India that the number of EMI bribes is increasing day by day. Ten cases have been reported this year alone, he said.

Shamsher Singh, Director of ACB in Gujarat said that this method is not new and they approach the Anti-Corruption Bureau after paying two or three instalments of bribes. He also said that a CID Crime Police Sub-Inspector (PSI) was arrested from Gandhinagar for accepting a bribe of Rs 40,000.