The Great Unease of Doing Business in India
Companies face so much red tape that it leaves them uncompetitive before they even start.
Even the most intrepid entrepreneurs struggle with India’s overzealous regulations.
Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/BloombergA little over three years ago, the World Bank scrapped its annual “Doing Business” report amid allegations that its top management had applied pressure on staff to boost China’s score. Back then, India’s rank was 63. That was a big jump from 2014, when it languished at a lowly 134th position among 189 economies. Still, starting a business continues to be a nightmare. The internet is strewn with first-person accounts — like this one — of the fruitless running around for mindless permits and approvals overwhelming even the most intrepid of entrepreneurs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” campaign has also got lost somewhere in the labyrinths of this bureaucratic maze. Despite the decade-old program, which claims to be the “single largest manufacturing initiative undertaken by a nation in recent history,” the share of manufacturing in the economy has shrunk to its lowest since 1960. A great unease of doing business is a big drag on India’s competitiveness.