CHENNAI: Next time when you are asked to cough up extra money to get a driving licence or a birth certificate, shock the bribe-seekers with a ‘zero rupee’ note.

CHENNAI: The next time a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation clerk demands a bribe to issue that clearance certificate, grease his palm with currency that will seem like a kick in the back. Fifth Pillar India, a Chennai-based organization that battles corruption, will release 1 lakh notes of ‘zero denomination’ in Mumbai next month.

Coimbatore Aug. 23: Fifth Pillar India, an NGO set up to fight corruption, has printed over 200,000 zero-denomination notes that resemble Indian currency and has begun distributing them around the country. It is asking people to give the notes to anyone demanding a bribe. Fifth Pillar will launch the zero rupee currency note campaign in Coimbatore on Saturday.

The drive against corruption and bribes has taken a new turn in India. The zero rupee experiment started in Chennai is now reaching other parts of the country.

Imagine that you are an old lady from a poor household in a town in the outskirts of Chennai city, India. All you have wanted desperately for the last year and a half is to get a title in your name for the land you own, called patta. You need this land title to serve as a collateral for a bank loan you have been hoping to borrow to finance your granddaughter’s college education. But there has been a problem: the Revenue Department official responsible for giving out the patta has been asking you to pay a little fee for this service.

A ZERO-SUM game is one in which the gains of one player are exactly balanced by the losses of another. In India a local non-governmental organization has invented a new sort of zero sum which, it hopes, will leave everyone better off: the zero-rupee note. Read More.