8 April 2015

Let’s get down to business

Apr 06, 2015

What India needs is a coherent and systematic approach. While the urgency shown by the new government to bring about necessary reforms to help businesses is promising, it needs to be followed equally ardently with action on the ground.

Deepak Parekh, the non-executive chairman of the board of HDFC, has rightly lashed out at the government that there has been little improvement in the “ease of doing business” in India by the government in the last nine months. Hectic efforts are on by the Centre, but much of the action lies elsewhere.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley has recently announced several initiatives that would help in this endeavour — a new law to replace the need for multiple prior permissions with pre-existing regulatory mechanisms, bankruptcy law reforms, simplification of tax procedures, exclusive commercial divisions in various courts, and a new law to resolve disputes in public contracts. However, what India needs is a coherent and systematic approach, undertaking impact assessments of legislations and regulations. While the urgency shown by the new government to bring about necessary reforms to help businesses is promising, this needs to be followed equally ardently with action on the ground. For example, if the government can launch a new slogan: “India out of Red Tape” like “Incredible India” or “Make in India”, it might galvanise our system to attack unnecessary bureaucratic delays.

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