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I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

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Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#71

Post by unmole »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #56
napier wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need limited liability at larger scale and an official entity to get low interest loans, support and above the counter investor funding. These systems need new company centred reform and redesign to remove friction causing elements like OP describes to enable Indian entrepreneurship to realise its untapped potential in India as well as overseas. The amount of bureaucracy left behind by the British and the layer u…

What makes me pessimistic is the place bureaucrats still occupy in the social hierarchy. Even today, getting a government job carries tremendous prestige, especially outside urban areas. Becoming an IAS/IPS officer is the most prestigious thing you can do as an individual. Bureaucracy will remain obdurate as long as members of the bureaucracy are feted by society. Ideally, bureaucrats should be invisible. But in Indi…

> Becoming an IAS/IPS officer is the most prestigious thing you can do as an individual.

If you are in UP and Bihar. That's not true for the rest of the country.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#73

Post by jacknews »

This seems like nothing to do with 'starting a business', but simply obtaining planning permission for changing land use.

This is a notoriously difficult process in any developed nation, and is often even impossible, because the state has decided that a particular area should be dedicated to agriculture (the nation has to feed itself, etc).

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#74

Post by sam_goody »

plaguepilled wrote: post #51
sam_goody wrote: post #45

I do not understand the authors issue with paying bribes. You want your factory, you are willing to pay lots of money for it, and the system works with bribes. Fine, so be it. Pay the bribes and get to work. I once lived in such a country*. The unfairness is built in, but if you have the money, you can get whatever you need relatively quickly. If you are trying to save money, fine. But you are willing to go to court,…

>"I do not understand the authors issue with paying bribes." Because... Its extremely unethical and facilitates corruption?

OK, accepted.

Like everything in life, there is always a trade off.

We have a see-saw. One side has indignation, encouraging corruption at the level of one bribe, cost. The other side has time, factory, jobs, and possibly more influence to change the system.

And from my experience, the people getting the bribe don't see it as unethical - it may even be their "salary". (Eg. Counselors don't get paid in many summer camps, they just get tips. Parents views the tips as extortion. Is it unethical to tip? No, but the whole system is corrupt and should be changed. /rant)

Assuming that system is built this way (so the risk of paying the bribe is nominal), and you have the resources to pay it, it is the cost of doing business. It is unfortunate, but I do not understand why the cost is not worth it.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#75

Post by silon42 »

sonthonax wrote: post #36
agileAlligator wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like the problem is that the author has a moral objection to paying bribes Duh?

There’s a distinction to be made between a small customary bribe to an seriously underpaid state employee, and a larcenous bribe to a high official.

So it is a "tip" for quality of service.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#76

Post by [deleted] »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #10
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #8

India's obsession with paperwork is unceasing and baffling. Everything requires an application, even when everything can be done digitally. You need letters and stamps to get anything done. Case in point: the "company stamps" that are required for everything you do with your business. From getting a debit card to changing the maturity instructions for a corporate deposit, you need to sign your name AND stamp it with…

Countries with high paperwork and bureaucratic burden are famous for also being highly corrupt. This is probably not a coincidence. Likely all the excess paperwork makes it easier to hide what's really going on, easy to provide roadblocks for those who don't pay, and easier to generally hide bad activity in a sea of noise.

[deleted]

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#77

Post by jwr »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #8

India's obsession with paperwork is unceasing and baffling. Everything requires an application, even when everything can be done digitally. You need letters and stamps to get anything done. Case in point: the "company stamps" that are required for everything you do with your business. From getting a debit card to changing the maturity instructions for a corporate deposit, you need to sign your name AND stamp it with…

> the "company stamps" that are required for everything you do with your business

We had that craze in Poland, but somehow managed to slowly crawl out of it over the last 20 years. It was a slow and painful process: even when the laws were changed not to require stamps, many places would ask for them and you would have to explain that your company stamp doesn't exist, so you can't place one on the form.

It's one of those bureaucratic viruses of the mind. We're lucky to have gotten rid of it, but there are others! Examples are "fill your forms with a BLUE pen" (supposedly because it looks less "photocopied"?), "sign legibly" (I never know if I'm supposed to use my signature or sign my name), "your national ID card number" (it's idiotic to ask for one, as it changes if you lose your ID and get a new one). There was also a period where every company would photocopy your ID (for example when signing up for a cellular plan), until the government stepped in and declared it illegal.

Bureaucracy is like barnacles on a ship: you have to constantly fight the growth.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#78

Post by amadeuspagel »

> Yes, you need to obtain “permission” before you build any manufacturing structure on your own land with your own money.

Are there any countries where this isn't true? Where you can just build whatever you want on your own land with your own money?

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#79

Post by usrusr »

silasdavis wrote: post #32
systemvoltage wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with physical paperwork (See Japan which runs on paper forms even today; most hospitals in US are paperless but they're far from efficient), but the underlying policies that dictate the requirements and how the approval process must be conducted, number of parties/agencies/teams involved and the incentives put in place to make sure it gets done within a certain timeframe (QA controls). Some gov…

Paperwork and bureaucracy conducted face-to-face is completely different in its capacity for bribery, cronyism, and discriminatory behaviour outside of the official system. Automated systems can be quite awful (original research: Spain) but neither paper or digital systems would officially state the human factors involved in turning them over. There's simply less opportunity for these human factors in more automated…

Particularly if you consider the on-ramp to corruption: being a little more lenient and helpful to those who are more polite than others blends into being a little more lenient and helpful to those who you consider "on your team" blends into blends into being a little more lenient and helpful to those who give favors in return blends into being a little more lenient and helpful to those who offer cash. Only then the artificial roadblocks begin. Fully developed corruption would likely find ways to continue after digitalization, but the ramp to get there would be so much less inviting.

Re: I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)

#80

Post by Vibgyor5 »

megablast wrote: post #65
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries with high paperwork and bureaucratic burden are famous for also being highly corrupt. This is probably not a coincidence. Likely all the excess paperwork makes it easier to hide what's really going on, easy to provide roadblocks for those who don't pay, and easier to generally hide bad activity in a sea of noise.

Is Japan the exception?

Not really - Germany is equally infamous for its obsession with paperwork and bureaucracy (unlike India, Germany still used fax)
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