Despite a push for “Make in India” and the promise of a change in global manufacture of China, many Indian entrepreneurs find that their biggest challenge is not foreign competition – it sails in the bureaucratic labyrinth of India.
An article on X Sunday struck a string sensitive to the Indian startup and the MSME ecosystem, offering a biting satirical list of 25 reasons why it is so difficult to manage a factory in India. From absurd paperwork requirements to arbitrary government interventions, the thread has rekindled the debate on the ease of affecting India, in particular compared to the Asian manufacturing giants such as China and Vietnam.
“If you are a courageous Indian who decides to start a MPME or a manufacturing company or a factory”, begins the post, “a clerk / municipal officer can reject your land registration file due to a missing appendix to the 16th page of the 17th form.”
He only becomes more exasperating from there. “Your TPS application could be marked for physical verification despite the digital verification of the Aadhaar, because your Insta photo and the Aadhaar card photo does not correspond.” In another case, “the Salt Commissioner’s office can send you an abusive use of pan of pan, although your land is 600 km from the nearest sea.”
The position is not only a rant – it is a reflection of the reason why many Indian manufacturers have trouble surviving. Entrepreneurs spend more time fighting administrative formalities than competition on the product, cost or quality. “This is why most of the aspiring entrepreneurs left and returning home wondering if they should simply have collaborated on normal employee work.”
On the other hand, China and Vietnam have built robust ecosystems for manufacturers, rationalizing authorizations, offering incentives and allowing a rapid scale. Indian entrepreneurs, on the other hand, face delays in power connection, environmental opinions for trees that do not exist and threats of penalty for poorly placed commas.
Even the most determined struggle to continue: “Little of the great souls who persevere, they spend most of their time and their energy to fight against the machinery of the Indian government for conformity. Not China / Vietnam on cost and quality. ”
Until India addresses these systemic problems on the ground – not only on paper – it risks losing the global manufacturing pivot which could have been its decisive economic opportunity.
