Doing Business in India is Tough..Here is what you can do

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World Bank’s recently released report, Doing Business in India is representative of how difficult is it to start a business in India. To give you a glimpse, India stands at a dismal 122nd position (Sri Lanka, Nepal, and even Pakistan is ahead of India).

Starting a business in India is a cumbersome process – one needs to go through bureaucratic channels.

It actually takes 13 procedures and 30 days to start a company in India. Obtaining all the permits and licenses, and completing all the verifications and notifications are activities that are hugely burdensome (lets not talk about the bribe here) is surely not helping entrepreneurs.

doing business in india

So where do we go from here?

Crib about it or do something about this situation?

Here is a grass root initiative that we are working on (along with Kartik Varma and his team) – E2I2.in (i.e. Easy Entrepreneurship in India).

What Is e2i2?

e2i2 is a grassroots level online signature campaign to petition the Prime Minister with practical suggestions  to ease the process of entrepreneurial activity in India. The campaign is online at www.e2i2.in. We hope that over time this can become a destination site with useful information and resources for first time entrepreneurs in India.

Why Should You Care?

Starting a company and building it into a world-class business is challenging anywhere in the world. In India, however, these activities are even tougher due the numerous administrative and regulatory roadblocks that Indian start-ups face.
In the early stages of a start-up’s life, Indian entrepreneurs inexplicably spend a lot of time on bureaucratic activities, that don’t help create any sustainable value for the enterprise or the economy. Here is just a sample of issues:

• It takes 13 procedures and 30 days to start a company in India
• Different bureaucracies and agencies “control” the issuances of different permits,licenses and verifications for PAN, TAN, ESI, Shop & Establishments Act, EPF etc.
• It takes over 10 years to shut a business in India, disincentivizing entrepreneurs from taking risk in starting anything
• Indian companies have to pay approximately 60 different types of taxes

Not surprisingly, India is ranked 122, in the bottom third, on the Ease of Doing Business Index.

What is surprising and embarrassing is that this ranking is below that of our less progressive neighbours: Pakistan (77), Sri Lanka (102), Bangladesh (110) and Nepal (121).

Whether you are an aspiring or an experienced entrepreneur, a VC, journalist, policy maker, industry organization, chances are you believe in India’s economic potential.

Lets turn this into reality by making India entrepreneur friendly.

What Can You Do?

You can help make the e2i2 campaign a national success, virtually without any effort on your part. Visit the campaign site at www.e2i2.in, sign up and tell your colleagues, classmates and friends about it.
Help us spread the word!

And if you want to be associated with the campaign, for no cost or commitment at all, mail your
organization’s logo to contact@e2i2.in and support the campaign. If you want to offer practical suggestions to be offered to the Government to improve the process of starting up a company in India, email us at contact@e2i2.in.