New Delhi: While engineering student Aryan Nishad’s nationwide corruption tracker bribes.fyi shut down soon after the initial hype, another crowdsourced database in Tamil Nadu has been going strong for three months.
Launched by 32-year-old Chennai software engineer Deepak Sivakumar, Makkal Saatchi, meaning ‘People’s Witness’, is now a thriving log of state-level bribery, with categories ranging from forced donations to certificate bribes and public-service corruption. The tagline is, “Whether it is ₹50 or ₹10 crore, every bribe leaves a trail.”
So far, Makkal Saatchi claims to have logged more than 1,300 anonymous complaints across all 38 districts of Tamil Nadu, exposing Rs 24 crore in reported bribes. By grouping repeated complaints against the same offices and publicly tagging officials on X, Sivakumar turns scattered individual grievances into collective public pressure.
Already frustrated by corruption, Sivakumar says he was inspired by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s stance against graft and his championing of transparency in administration.
“CM Vijay’s strict approach to corruption and bribery inspired me to create this website,” he said.
When bribes.fyi shut down earlier this week, Sivakumar posted that the “pressure is real”. Separately, he wrote that the new TVK government “is willing to face the truth” and act against corruption even within its own system, adding that any other dispensation would have “silenced” him by now.
More than 80 days since @makkal_saatchi was launched.
📄 1,305 public reports
📍 All 38 districts
💰 ₹24 crore reported
🛡️ 86% submitted anonymously
If this were under any other government, either the platform would have been shut down or I would have been silenced by now. It… pic.twitter.com/tmfLhxEa1K
— Raavanan (@raavanamavan7) August 17, 2026
He says results are showing, even if not always to his satisfaction.
“If I get any complaints repeated from the same person or same institution or same thing, I will collect all the things and I will put it on Twitter and tag the concerned officials. They [Tamil Nadu administration] are definitely taking action,” Sivakumar told ThePrint.
In July, after multiple complaints of bribery at the Directorate of Medical Education in Kilpauk, Sivakumar posted about them on X and tagged senior officials. One post cited a bribe amount of nearly Rs 2 lakh. He said IAS officers later told him that the superintendent concerned had been transferred.
Also read: Anti-corruption site bribes.fyi shuts down forever, says will delete all data
A community to call out corruption—even in TVK
The idea for Makkal Saatchi grew out of Sivakumar’s frustration with systemic state corruption, specifically in the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC)—a state-owned public sector company that holds a complete monopoly over the wholesale and retail trade of alcoholic beverages in Tamil Nadu.
Last year, the Enforcement Directorate said it uncovered irregularities worth over Rs 1,000 crore in TASMAC involving kickbacks, inflated expenses and manipulated tenders. In July, the state vigilance agency also booked former minister V Senthil Balaji and others over irregularities between 2021 and 2025.
Sivakumar first built a simple application for people to report overcharging at TASMAC shops. Users could enter the shop number and other details. Within 15 days, he says, it had received 400 complaints. That became the seed for Makkal Saatchi, after which he started increasing its scope.
“In Tamil Nadu, in many places, bribes are happening in many government offices, in each and every department. So I did a complete analysis of what are the things, what the departments are, what patterns have happened before, which departments are involved, and made a complete bribe portal,” Sivakumar said.
Like a social media platform, Makkal Saatchi allows users to file complaints anonymously, while others can comment and engage with them—a feature Sivakumar says is central to building a community around reporting corruption.
TASMAC accounts for the largest number of reports on the website, followed by the electricity board, registration offices and municipalities.
On X, Sivakumar doesn’t hesitate to call out TVK either, despite his fondness for the party.
“What’s happening in @TVKVijayHQ? Veerasamy reportedly spent 15 days in jail last month in connection with a bribery case. Now, his wife has reportedly been given a party post in Chengalpattu district. What message does this send to TVK functionaries?” he posted this month, referring to the expulsion of a TVK functionary for allegedly accepting a Rs 1.3 lakh bribe from a road contractor.
What’s happening in @TVKVijayHQ ?
Veerasamy reportedly spent 15 days in jail last month in connection with a bribery case. Now, his wife has reportedly been given a party post in Chengalpattu district.
What message does this send to TVK functionaries? If people facing serious… https://t.co/ZHTW5cH0Yv
— Raavanan (@raavanamavan7) August 10, 2026
His posts often draw supportive messages. “At least one has a spine to call it out… Respect,” one user replied to the Veerasamy post, while another rued: “I’m not too optimistic about positive change in India.”
In the past three months, Sivakumar says he has received several offers of investment, but has refused to take any money.
“With investors there will be an agenda, which may affect the website,” he said.
He pays for the platform’s maintenance himself, despite offers of up to Rs 50,000 from well-wishers.
Plans for a national platform
A BSc graduate from Asan Memorial College of Arts and Science, Sivakumar learned coding at his first job and currently works at Wipro.
He used artificial intelligence to create Makkal Saatchi, which he says now gets around five lakh users. Encouraged by the platform’s growth, Sivakumar also created People Witness in July, a portal covering all states and Union territories in 22 regional languages. This site, however, did not take off.
“I think I failed to popularise it,” he said. “I left the platform sitting on the server for a month and paid Rs 15,000 for it.”
Sivakumar has taken this site down, but the idea of another national platform is still alive. He is now developing a governance intelligence system designed to allow users to undergo confidential identity verification while still remaining anonymous.
Also Read: Abhijeet Dipke’s Swades moment—his village school gets benches for the first time
‘People are inspired now’
Platforms like Makkal Saatchi have been launched every now and then with varying degrees of success, from the short-lived bribes.fyi to the still-functional I Paid a Bribe, launched by Bengaluru-based non-profit Janaagraha.
S Nagalsamy, a former member of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission and ex-president of anti-corruption movement Makkal Paathai, says collective action cannot eradicate corruption, but it can make a dent.
“An organisation can protect and safeguard the individual. Then, as a group in large numbers, the bureaucracy will also be a little afraid and listen to them,” he said. “Once corruption reaches the highest level, it percolates down into the bureaucracy… Tamil Nadu has reached the maximum level of corruption during the last 10 years.”
Nagalsamy also welcomes young people speaking out against corruption.
“The youngsters rising up against the government and corruption, I think this is the hope for at least reducing corruption,” he said.
Sivakumar says the government is aware of Makkal Saatchi, but he has received no notice to shut it down.
“Many higher-level officers, like IPS, IAS, have called me and appreciated me, including from some critical teams of the government. So I think maybe I am on their radar,” he said.
He isn’t worried about the platform being taken down, and says that even if it is, more will be launched.
“People are inspired. Look at bribes.fyi,” he said.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)