Bloomberg Markets: India Needs a Bureaucracy Buster

Interesting excerpts from a commentary written by Andy Mukherjee from the May 2008 issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine:

"From earth sciences and public grievances to social justice, urban poverty and the diaspora, the Indian government has a ministry for everything and everyone.  Forming a new agency is its way of legitimizing an activity or an interest group by saying, "We care about you."

...Of course the number of ministries--there are 48 of them, plus "independent departments" of atomic energy and space--also reflects the compulsion of running a coalition government. 

...Including junior ministries, 79 politicians currently hold high office in the federal government.  State governments replicate many of the federal ministries and have some additional ones besides.  Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, has a minister for gardens.

Amid this plenitude, the office that's badly needed and remains missing in India is the Ministry for Doing Business...  India needs a minister for doing business to reduce the clutter and confusion businesses face when dealing with a very large, and growing executive branch.  Not only that.  The further one moves down the chain of command--from federal to state governments and then to civic management--the denser the web of control becomes, even as the responsiveness of the officialdom turns less predictable.

Not long ago, foreign investors cited bureaucratic delays as of of the main reasons for not wanting to come to India.  Now, the situation has changed...  The minister of doing business needs to take a look at all of the hoops an enterprise goes through in India, compare them with international best practice and eliminate the time-wasting, irrelevant ones.  For instance, the minister has to ask why it takes 224 days to get construction drawings cleared and obtain the necessary permits, clearances and utility connections for erecting a new building in Mumbai when the same tasks can be accomplished in Seoul in just 34 days, according to data compiled by the World Bank.

All that's needed is a minister who will become, to borrow the title of Arundhati Roy's 1997 novel, a God of Small Things.  That, at this moment, is the biggest job in India."