India more corrupt than 93 other nations: survey

India has been ranked 94th in Transparency International's latest survey of corruption conducted among 177 countries, a notch above its last year's ranking of at 95th position.

Transparency, however, said it has started making evaluations through a different formula beginning this year.

India ranks lower than neighbouring China (which is ranked at 80th) but above Pakistan, which is ranked at 127th in the list.

The Transparency survey, released on Tuesday, has found Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia to be as the world's most corrupt countries with Denmark and New Zealand as the cleanest.

India, hit by a series of scams involving the government and its public sector entities over the past few years, including the 3G scam, coal scam, iron ore mining scam, chopper scam etc, has slipped 22 ranks down in Transparency International's corruption index since 2007.

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be.

Corruption level in a country or territory is weighed on a 0 to 100 scale, where 0 means that a country is highly corrupt and at 100 the country is perceived as very clean.

India has a score of 36 out of 100.

Transparency International's annual list is the most widely used indicator of sleaze in political parties, police, justice systems and civil services, a scourge which undermines development and the fight against poverty.

Almost 70 per cent of nations surveyed are found to have a "serious problem" with public servants, and none of the 177 countries surveyed this year had a perfect score of 100, said the Berlin-based corruption watchdog.

"Corruption hurts the poor most," lead researcher Finn Heinrich said.

"That's what you see when you look at the countries at the bottom. Within those countries, it's also poor people who get hurt the most. These countries will never get out of the poverty trap if they don't tackle corruption."

Most countries that have slipped the most in the 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index are war-hit Middle East countries such as Syria and Libya.

"Corruption is very much linked to countries that fall apart, as you see in Libya, Syria, two of the countries that deteriorated the most," said Heinrich.

"If you look at the bottom of the list, we also have Somalia there. These are not countries where the government is functioning effectively, and people have to take all means in order to get by, to get services, to get food, to survive."

Afghanistan, where most NATO-led Western forces are pulling out next year after a more than decade long deployment, is "a sobering story. We have not seen tangible improvements," said Heinrich.

"The West has not only invested in security but also in trying to establish the rule of law. But there have been surveys in the last couple of years showing the share of people paying bribes is still one of the highest in the world."

Also at the bottom of the list is North Korea, "an absolutely closed totalitarian society", said Heinrich, where defectors report that famine is worsening corruption "because you have to know someone in the party who is corrupt in order to even survive".

Among the "most improved" countries, although from a low base, was Myanmar, where a former military junta has opened the door to the democratic process and, facing an investment boom, has formally committed to transparency and accountability rules.

"That's the only way countries can avoid the 'resource curse', where the resources are only available to a very small elite," said Heinrich. "Nigeria and other oil-rich countries are obviously very good examples."

Huguette Labelle, chair of Transparency, said "all countries still face the threat of corruption at all levels of government, from the issuing of local permits to the enforcement of laws and regulations".