When it comes to transparency,Bengal is positioned in the middle as it is neither a very corrupt nor a very transparent state. In a survey conducted by the Transparency International,a non-profit organisation based in Berlin,West Bengal with 461 points is ranked eighth among the 20 Indian states that were surveyed. Kerala is the least corrupt Indian state with 240 points and Bihar with 695 points is the most corrupt. All these are,however,relative and in spite of the points,one cannot really say that Bihar is the most corrupt state or Kerala the least corrupt. These are all relatively speaking, said Ajit Banerjee. Secretary,Transparency International India,West Bengal chapter. The water supply service of Bengal has been ranked among the most corrupt in the country with Himachal Pradesh having the highest percentage of piped water. In all the other departments,including education till 12th grade,police services,land and record registration and electrical services,Bengal has emerged as a moderately corrupt state. But it is once again the health statistics and people having access to the government hospitals where the state ranks low. Bengal ranks abysmally low in the quality of services provided to people in all the sectors. They may not be asking for bribes but are rude to the masses in general. That does present a sorry picture of the state,in comparison to other states,where work gets done,even if its with bribes, said Banerjee. Within the state,the organisation conducted three different kinds of surveys. In the first survey on governance,performance and activities of panchayat in Burdwan and Nadia,the results showed that people could easily access panchayats when faced with problems and unlike government offices,they did not undergo harassment. The survey also revealed that there was not much transparency in the panchayat system and the majority of the households had little idea about the flow of funds to the panchayat samities or the gram panchayat. The second survey on joint forest management where villagers living on the fringes of forests and the forest department work together to increase the revenue of the former in Bankura,Midnapore and Purulia found that while the revenue of the villagers had increased they had little decision-making power. The third survey on peoples assessment of service agencies in Midnapore showed that institutions across the state were indifferent to the plight of the people. Most of the departments in the state from health,to education,forest,municipal,people working in these areas are lazy and indifferent,which points towards a bad governance, said Banerjee. We found that the delivery system in Bengal is poor with most funds being unutilised, she added.
