silkboard - 17 December, 2011 | Traffic | Bangalore | Corruption | Analysis | BTP | Transportation | Enforcement

Now that I have had 10 second hand reports on this, its time to do some math on the black money generated by drunken drivers of Bangalore. I am yet to experience this first hand (hope never to), those who have, say that they pay anywhere from Rs 1500 - 2500 in all after they get booked for drunken driving. 2 of 10 recent cases I know of got away by paying the cop, average amount paid through the process of ticket and court trip was Rs 1600. The receipt issued in all (as in 8 out of 10 cases) was only for Rs 1000. For now, ignore the 2 cases where they wriggled out through a spot bribe as that is too small a sample set.

As per Bangalore Traffic police website, 57357 offences of drunked driving were recorded till November 2011 (stat noted from BCP website on Dec 17, at 9 PM IST).

Assuming that avg amount "collected" on top of the receipt was Rs 600 (1600 minus Rs 1000), amount of "un-accounted" money generated by the dunked drivers of Bangalore would be

• 57357 * 600
• That would be 34414200, or about Rs 3.5 Crores

Now, this "extra amount" is apparently paid as the "convenience fee" to the lawyer who saves booked drivers the hassle of waiting in the court for their turn. The cops who complete the paper formalities are known to note down details of the lawyer you interacted with in the court.

Assuming that 900 cops share this "un-accounted" money with appx 100 lawyers, each may be getting

• 3.5 Crore / 1000 = 35000
• That's for 11 months (till November 2011)
• Each cop/lawyer involved may be pocketing ~ Rs 3200 per month

Wonder if above numbers are conservative or aggressive. But from what one can see and observe purely from outside, that's the black money drunken drivers of Bangalore are generating for the cops and lawyers of Bengaluru.

Before closing this post, I ignored the 2 cases of spot-bribe. 2 out of 10 is not bad, only 20% get away through spot-bribe. Lets assume that in 20% of the cases, slightly lower amount (than Rs 600) is "generated".

• Assume avg Rs 500 spot-bribe in each case
• taking the 2 vs 8 ratio (based on empirical observation), for 4 recorded offences, 1 gets away with spot-bribe.
• So, for 57357 recorded cases, there would be 14339 spot-bribes
• 14339 * 500 = ~ Rs 71.7 lakhs
• Add this to Rs 3.5 Cr, we are talking Rs 4.2 Crores total un-accounted money.
• With same assumptions as above, we now get Rs 3800 per month in each participating pocket.

Hmmm.

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