India had the highest bribery rate among the 16 Asia-Pacific countries surveyed by Transparency International between July 2015 and January 2017, with nearly seven in 10 people who had accessed public services in the country during the period paying a bribe.
As much as 69% of the study group in India said they had paid a bribe, given a gift or done a favour to receive services.
Vietnam follows with 65%, Thailand 41% and Pakistan 40%. China reported a much lower 26%.
Japan had the lowest incidence of bribery at 0.2 per cent.
South Korea and Australia recorded 3% each, Hong Kong 2% and Taiwan 6%.
While 46% to 60% of Indians said they paid bribes for various public services, including in public schools and hospitals and for getting IDs, voter cards and permits and accessing utilities and the police, 31% to 45% said they paid bribes for court services as well.
The survey was conducted among more than 21,000 people in the region.
More than 900 million people in the 16 Asia-Pacific places surveyed have paid a bribe in the last year, or more than one in four people, when accessing basic services like medicine, education or water.
The results from across the region show that it is a key law and order institution — the police — that was thought to suffer most from corruption.
While nearly two in five said the police were mostly or entirely corrupt (39%), many people in the region also perceived political decision-makers at both the national and local level to be highly corrupt.
Over a third said that their legislative representatives , officials and local councillors were highly corrupt (from 35 to 37 per cent).
Religious leaders were seen as far cleaner, with fewer than one in five saying they were highly corrupt (18 per cent).
