Making doing business in India, a great idea by Modi, is strongly sabotaged by two govt. departments - so strongly that these two departments undo whatever Modi is attempting to do. The first is the company law board: This has a website that simply does not work. It has been put into operation without proper design, development and testing. I know a case where an SME, to enhance the capital from 25 to 75 lakhs has taken more than two months and yet the job is undone - all because of this website that simply does not work. I also know a case where an Indian and two foreign entrepreneurs located their manufacturing unit in India and regretted for having come to India solely due to the meaningless obstacles put on them by this department. This department is also notorious in not just already having rules with no sense except to harass the entrepreneur and delay any process of progress / growth. I would recommend the high powered committee that was created by Modi to remove one law a day must work on laws that concern this department first and remove the laws and rules that block both the doing business India mission and Make in India mission frustrating to accomplish for genuine entrepreneurs. I sometimes feel that this department is acting on behalf of the opposition party/parties! Unless this first hurdle is removed and the department is made to realize that its role is to facilitate and not to block the citizens coming to it, these great missions will take an unduly and avoidably long time to start producing results.
The other department that is a very severe block is of course the notorious Income Tax department. The attitude of this department has to change diametrically opposite to what it is pursuing: that citizens do not want to pay tac and unless they harass them, tax collection would fall. Of course the primary purpose of this department's harassment of the citizen is to extract corruption for themselves. Recently I came across a case where my friend's chartered accountant submitted a tax return for my friend's company running a (genuine) loss of 5 lakhs; the deputy commissioner of income tax asked for a payment of Rs 1 lakh to him to accept the return without any question. My friend's chartered account explained to him that he is not a tax evader, and that he is genuinely in bad financial condition and so he can pay only 10 thousand rupees bribe. But the deputy commissioner said: 'What do you think, a deputy commissioner is so cheap? I won’t come down even by 1 Re. of my demand.' The friend and his CA could not meet his demand and they get an order from the deputy commissioner the next day that he has to pay 5 lakhs to the department. Even if my friend goes on appeal, first he has to pay and then go on appeal. And we know in our country how fast the courts/tribunals function and so my friend is in dire trouble. What to do with such people in IT department who are armed with power to penalize genuine citizens unjustly for their own selfish ends?
We need to look into the laws and rules that make these departments just to obstruct and coming in the way of India and Indians growing. We should remove laws and rules not just one law a day but a dozen and that too within days and not even weeks, on a priority basis for these two departments. more