Faceless Assessment

On August 13, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a platform called Transparent Taxation, Honoring the Honest. “Faceless assessment and taxpayer charter are applicable starting today,” he said, as reported by Business Insider. He added: “The possibility of familiarity or influence will now be zero.”

Faceless appeals followed in September 2020. The Press Information Bureau stated: “There will be no physical interface between the taxpayers or their counsel/s and the Income Tax Department.”

No Room for Touts

In September 2012 Business Standard told the story of a woman who had applied for her first passport ten years earlier. “She could have escaped the drudgery had she engaged a tout, but he had asked for Rs 4,000,” the paper wrote. Touts and middlemen, it added, “would take multiple reservations on fake names and clog the system.”

Passport Seva Kendras, new passport service centers, began as a pilot in April 2010. “This has also meant that there is no room now for touts and agents,” Business Standard wrote in 2012. In a 2015 interview, the chief passport officer, Muktesh Pardeshi, said: “we cannot boast of completely eliminating malpractices from any society.”

The License Agent

A team of economists followed 822 people in Delhi who set out to get a driver’s license. “More than 70% of the participants in our study who obtained a license hired an agent.” Seventy percent of the participants reported getting a permanent license without taking the mandatory practical test at the Regional Transport Office.

The study, by Marianne Bertrand, Simeon Djankov, Rema Hanna and Sendhil Mullainathan, was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Recommendation Letter

At Tirumala, the temple of Lord Venkateswara near Tirupati, a VIP break darshan is a special slot for viewing the deity. In May 2025 the Andhra Pradesh Endowments Minister, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, announced that it would continue, “based on recommendation letters from MPs, MLAs and MLCs,” the Deccan Chronicle reported. Slots for the legislators of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana resumed on May 15.

Hired Through a Colleague

In 2011 Business Standard asked Indian companies how they found their staff. “We hire almost 30% of our lateral talent acquisition through our employee referral programme,” said Raghavendra K, head of human resources at Infosys BPO. At iGATE Patni, Mahesh Guru said that 24 percent of the previous year’s hires had come through referrals.

Sifarish

Sifarish means a recommendation. A person with sifarish has someone who has spoken for them. The Rekhta dictionary gives recommendation and intercession as its first meanings. It notes that the word can also mean “undue favour or influence.”

The Introducer

Indian banks used to ask anyone opening an account for an introduction from an existing customer of the bank. Someone the bank already knew had to vouch for the newcomer.

In December 2012 the Reserve Bank of India told banks to stop insisting on it. The requirement, it said, was not mandatory under any of its rules.

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