Applying for a passport is one of the most painful things a person can do. A major part of the pain process is the police verification, and it is observed that this is one of the major issues that delays the whole process. In many cases, it is required to follow up with the police force to figure out whether police verification has happened.
Well, maybe this will change in the future; the Bangalore police system is working on a system that will push these police verification requests to the police station on a priority basis and the police have to clear cases either way rather than delaying these:

Passport applications will no longer be delayed due to police verification as the police will now have to clear applications on a ‘first come first serve’ basis.
Once the new system is connected to the main server, which is currently tracking passport applications on a trial basis, the area police have to mandatorily verify and clear applications which come to them first and only then get on with the day’s work. FIFO would help ensure transparency in police verification and speed up the process.
However, applicants have to still wait until the enforcement agency clears some initial hitches. The main obstacle is police station records which are not computerised and not equipped with any systems.

Such things are very useful as this will reduce the effect of touts and other middlemen, as well as the customary bribe either directly or indirectly to the policemen. This will take time to implement as there will be initial reluctance on the part of the police force to use such a system, in addition, there will be many police stations that are not well-connected or computerised. But this is a good way to proceed, atleast for passport applications. The need is to extend this to other states as well, as well as for other functions that are needed to be done by the police force in terms of verifications.