This appeared first on LinkedIn.
Ease of business? Right, then.
For ONE food-related Private Limited Company I run, we need the following compliances/registrations/certifications/numbers:
- Corporate Identification Number – CIN
- Tax Account Number – TIN
- Permanent Account Number – PAN
- Goods & Services Tax Number – GSTIN
- Professional Tax Number (separate for directors, management, personnel, and corporate) – PTN
- Export Licence Number – IEC
- Food Safety & Standards Authority of India Registration Number (per facility) – FSSAI
- Shop Act Number (per office/godown/store)
- Director Information Number (per director) – DIN
- Digital Signature (per director) – DSC
- Trademark Registration Number (per trademark)
- Employees Provident Fund EIC Number – EIC
Then, there are the various industry organisations and export promotion councils, Dun & Bradstreet Registrations, who have their own numbers, plus certifying agencies like HACCP, ISO, FTL, and others, as also the regular bank account numbers, insurance policy numbers, and so on.
Now, you want us to apply for a Universal Identity Number too (Aadhaar for corporates)!
These are just the NUMBERS.
Add to this various DATES on which taxes must be deducted, paid, audited, and submitted to various authorities.
Now, add the various FORMS, with their attendant digital counterparts with logins and passwords, SMS OTPs and eMail OTPs, and the requirements to have complicated passwords that have to be mandatorily changed every so often.
On top of all this, as an icing on the cake, consider the discretionary POWERS (some even have powers to seize property and arrest) given to random ill-trained people with a massive inferiority complex and impressive-sounding designations.
Lastly, load on to this, the Indian Penal Code, which was written with the object of keeping natives in fear of the law, rather than to ease their lives…and the resulting hangover effect of it that even new laws list every small and large infraction by the citizen/business with a steep PENALTY: fine, interest, jail term and so on, with a “guilty until proven otherwise” perspective.
And you will understand why fixed costs go up in an enterprise in India. Because an entire army of Admin, HR, Legal, Compliance, Finance, and Accounts apart from various consultants and agents, touts and middlemen are needed to simply comply (basically stay out of jail and not pay exorbitant fines).
Then, there are new laws like E-way bills and various agencies’ random KYC and audit rules that need constant follow-up and compliance. Also, add to this, the pitiful state of logistics, transportation, banking transactions, and other basic infrastructure like power, water, land records, and labour, and then top it up with the completely useless and toothless insolvency code, glacially slow courts, no respect for contracts or private property, and a social stigma over failure. And I am not even speaking of the pathetic state of risk capital (or the complete lack of it).
And you talk of startup India, standup India, ease of doing business, and other crap!
बात करता है।
Later Edit: Imagine if I need not have worried about all of this, or at least all of it were reduced to just one number (and those of you who think Aadhar for companies will achieve this, let me know what you’re smoking. I want some of it), which was connected to all the departments. Imagine that I could apply for a company registration online, and submit all the documents in one go, and then a number is generated that takes care of all of this, including a current account in the State Bank of India, internet access, ATM card, business licenses etc. Imagine if all I had to do was to present this number to everyone and any new certifications I got were simply appended to it. Imagine if I could use online systems to put in my expenses and my invoices and they all came together to calculate the tax and all it required was for me to use an app to click “Approve” to pay it from my bank account. Imagine if all I had to worry about was making more jams, and selling more jams. Imagine if my entire day, 100% of my resources, my full staff, my time, my energies, and my money were directed to making and selling better jams (or in your case, whatever it is that you make and sell). Imagine if all I had to do is practice and excel at the one thing I do well. Imagine where my brand, this economy, this society, and this world could be. Just imagine. Are you done imagining now? OK, now go do your accounts. The GST returns date is around the corner.
