New Delhi (CNN) -- A landmark bill to create an independent anti-graft watchdog agency heads Wednesday to India's upper house of parliament.
A day earlier, the Lok Sabha -- or the lower house -- passed the bill after a marathon session in New Delhi
And while the ruling Congress Party's alliance does not have a majority in the upper house, or Rajya Sabha, the government stands a chance of getting the bill turned into law if some opposition lawmakers walk out as they did during Tuesday's debate.
Critics of the legislation have long said it falls short of adequately empowering the watchdog agency it would create, including a Lokpal, or citizen ombudsmen to address graft issues.
Meanwhile in Mumbai, the elderly crusader, who brought the corruption issue to the fore, fell ill while keeping to a hunger strike to protest the weakness of the proposed legislation.
Supporters of a frail Anna Hazare urged him to call off his fast, which he said would last as long as parliament debated the bill. Tuesday night, ambulances arrived at the Mumbai commercial complex where Hazare was staging his fast, ready to transport the 74-year-old to a hospital.
"There are some very special moments in the life of a nation. This is one such moment," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said during Tuesday's debate on the bill.
"Others can persuade and have their voices heard," he said, alluding to Hazare. "But the decision must rest with us. ... We have seen how public anger has manifested itself in the last one year. Let us, therefore, endorse this bill as proposed."
But opposition leaders said Singh was leading a corrupt party -- Congress's reputation has been marred by scandal -- that had put forth a weak anti-graft bill.
In a new Transparency International survey published last week, 64% of Indians said they paid a bribe to police, the highest corruption rate of any institution. And less than a quarter thought their government's efforts to fight corruption were effective.
One point of contention in the proposed legislation is that it excludes the Central Bureau of Investigation from the purview of the Lokpal.
"Without an investigative agency, what is the purpose of Lokpal?" Hazare said in a December 17 letter. "It's better we don't have such a Lokpal."
Corruption has been a part of daily life in India for many years. But it was a series of high-profile scandals that rocked the current administration and investor confidence in Asia's third-largest economy.
In April, a former government minister in India was among a dozen defendants charged in a multibillion-dollar telecom scandal.
Andimuthu Raja, a former telecommunication minister, is accused of being involved in a scheme involving the underselling of cell phone licenses at the height of India's lucrative telecom boom.
Police have questioned several high-profile executives in connection with the suspected below-price sale of radiowaves in 2008. Politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate officials linked to the probe have denied any wrongdoing.
Investigators are also probing complaints of financial malfeasance in the Commonwealth Games that India hosted in October last year.
Several politicians, military officials, and bureaucrats have also been the subjects of a separate inquiry for allegedly taking apartments meant for war widows.
CNN's Moni Basu, Jethro Mullen and Harmeet Shah Singh contributed to this report