{"id":4303,"date":"2009-02-19T20:36:01","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T15:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indiauncut.com\/?p=3284"},"modified":"2009-02-19T20:36:01","modified_gmt":"2009-02-19T15:06:01","slug":"naive-or-mad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indiauncut.com\/naive-or-mad\/","title":{"rendered":"Naive Or Mad?"},"content":{"rendered":"
You have to be either naive or mad to start a business in India, I believe—and if you are the first of those, you may soon become the second. Check out this piece by Sandeep Kohli on the difficulty of doing business in India: “The License Raj Is Dead. Long Live the License Raj.”<\/a><\/p>\n Honestly, Kohli’s piece makes it appear that he had it easy. I have friends who run businesses in India who have been driven to the verge of nervous breakdowns by local authorities out to fleece them. In most places in the world, a business is successful when it fulfills the needs of its customers; in India, you first have to fulfill the needs of a thousand assorted babus—only then do you reach your customers, with your costs already so high that you can’t give your customers anywhere near as good a deal as you otherwise would be able to. <\/p>\n Check out The Corruption Rant<\/a> for an example of what a businessman in India has to go through. Also consider the fate of the Four Seasons hotel<\/a> in Mumbai, the opening of which “was delayed by at least two years” because “the hotel needed 165 government permits – including a special licence for the vegetable weighing scale in the kitchen and one for each of the bathroom scales put in guest rooms.” 165<\/i> government permits. Licenses for weighing scales<\/i>. What kind of crazy country are we living in?<\/p>\n Also read<\/b>: India’s Far From Free Markets<\/a>.<\/p>\n (HT: Reuben<\/a> and Mohit<\/a>, separately, for the Kohli piece; Reuben for the Four Seasons piece.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You have to be either naive or mad to start a business in India, I believe—and if you are the first of those, you may soon become the second. Check out this piece by Sandeep Kohli on the difficulty of doing business in India: “The License Raj Is Dead. Long Live the License Raj.”<\/a><\/p>\n Honestly, Kohli’s piece makes it appear that he had it easy. I have friends who run businesses in India who have been driven to the verge of nervous breakdowns by local authorities out to fleece them. In most places in the world, a business is successful when it fulfills the needs of its customers; in India, you first have to fulfill the needs of a thousand assorted babus—only then do you reach your customers, with your costs already so high that you can’t give your customers anywhere near as good a deal as you otherwise would be able to. <\/p>\n Check out The Corruption Rant<\/a> for an example of what a businessman in India has to go through. Also consider the fate of the Four Seasons hotel<\/a> in Mumbai, the opening of which “was delayed by at least two years” because “the hotel needed 165 government permits – including a special licence for the vegetable weighing scale in the kitchen and one for each of the bathroom scales put in guest rooms.” 165<\/i> government permits. Licenses for weighing scales<\/i>. What kind of crazy country are we living in?<\/p>\n Also read<\/b>: India’s Far From Free Markets<\/a>.<\/p>\n (HT: Reuben<\/a> and Mohit<\/a>, separately, for the Kohli piece; Reuben for the Four Seasons piece.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n