Well, I expected this article to be about bribes, because I assume it happens a lot. However, there were no bribes. Does anyone have actual experience with bribes in India (not traffic police)?

Edit: sorry, one person openly asked for a bribe, the Panchayat. I would like to understand more about this. Do they just ask for an amount?

Not the OP but typically bureaucrats will talk about fees and fines, which continue without documentation of their purpose (at which point they are explicitly bribes).

Baksheesh, whereby people expect a tip ahead of time if you want decent service, is quite common in India and is essentially another form of corruption, especially when practiced by police, bureaucrats, etc.

IME the bribes are often not asked directly but instead the people in the office throw up insurmountable obstacles so that you initiate the conversation of bribes. I don't know why they do this, maybe because it puts them in a better negotiating position?

Soliciting a bribe is probably illegal.

But accepting a gift to do your actual job, how could that be illegal, hmmmm?

If you go first you are offering a bribe. If the police are investigating offering a bribe is entrapment and your lawyer will run with that in court.

In short it is a way to avoid getting caught.

I read the article a bit differently... Whenever there is a "no bribes" note, all went well - elsewhere there were obstacles which could probably be solved with bribes.

House/plot registration is a common place where most folks encounter bribe. The person/company selling you the house/plot will ask you to bring INR 15-20K in cash to the registrar office. It'll be paid to an agent who is a conduit.

Driving license is another. You'll see tens of touts in and around the govt office; you pay about INR 2-3K and get your drivers' license. Again, a tout/agent will handle it for you end to end.

Both are very well oiled machine; money goes all the way up to politicians. Getting a posting in those offices in turn requires millions of rupees of bribe, besides influence, caste angle etc.,

Speaking from personal experience.

Bribes are required for each of the following for any store/shop/market:

* Trade license (renewable each year)

* Shops and establishment license Weights and measures calibration (needs to be done each year)

* To get electrical connection or to get additional capacity (Rs.100,000/KW in Bengaluru)

* Export / Import - at the ports to various officials no matter how clear your papers are

* Police clearance (for restaurants)

* Health inspector (from time to time)

* Food and Safety license (needs to be renewed periodically) Labour inspector etc

* Periodic visits from panchayat/municpality/police etc where they will demand money or take stuff for free or at huge discounts

India is a cesspit of corruption

I worked as a Unix guy for Morgan Stanley UK & US in the 90s. As part of a SunOS to Solaris rollout, we built & pre-configured all the AFS servers for the Bombay (as it was known at the time) office before they were wrapped & palleted up to be shipped over to India to be racked & powered on over there. There was a courier (I'm not sure if he was an actual MS employee) who apparently would travel along with all the pallets and grease the wheels at certain points with cash payments. It was well known among our project team that cash bribes were an absolutely essential part of getting the servers in one piece and at the same time to our office there in Bombay. I never did find out how much the "bribe fund" was for that project but I suppose a couple of grand would have covered it. BTW The servers did get there in one piece, and they pretty much all came up as they should have.

I had a traffic parking violation recently. When I showed up at my car, I found that there was a traffic police's wheel lock on my car's front right wheel, which I assumed is because I parked in a no-parking area (a no parking sign was about 20 meters away from where I was parked). My car was one among many cars parked in that lane and mine was the only one they fined (I guess because they had only one wheel lock to deploy).

The phone number of the constable who deployed the lock was written on the lock itself. So I called it. The constable and a sub-inspector promptly showed up within 15 minutes. They spoke very politely when I asked why I was the only one being fined. They were even apologetic as they were promptly issuing me a ticket for Rs.500. I had looked up the fine before they arrived and Rs.500 was correct. I paid the fine, they removed the lock and I drove away. They were deploying that lock on another vehicle on the same lane. No bribe whatsoever. Overall, I was surprised/delighted/dazed by the whole experience.