Red Tape is it needed In India???

Well most you might be aware of the fact that India’s investment climate is not good because of the widespread Red Tapism prevalent in the country. All these things just delay the projects thus escalating the cost of the projects and over time making them unviable. But the question arises do we really need all this in India.

Red Tapism as per Dictionary means needless time consuming procedures it includes the approval from various offices, ministries, and officials. Now the question arises that why the government doesn't reduce all these time consuming procedures?  Needless procedures create hurdles in the projects and in order to remove these hurdles the project managers pay bribes to the officials. In India if you have money you don’t have to wait but if you don’t want to bribe then wait.

First of all we should know what all these procedures are all about. These steps include processing of the files of the projects where the technical, environmental aspects are scrutinized and assessed; the building rules are checked, etc. This usually happens in these procedures but in India all these are neglected and the file moves just to fill the pockets of the officials.

Should we remove all these?

Well that would be a bad idea especially in India and for India. Already many projects that are building are not building as per the rules and procedures encompassing all the safety measures. If we remove all these measures it will further increase the number of such projects in India. Since there will be no such hurdles the investment will surely improve but at the same time you would be hearing in the news bulletin that A building collapsed and hundreds of people got buried. It will be further more dangerous than what it is at present.

The Way out…

The only option that is available to India is to ensure that all these procedures are fast tracked. This can be done by providing a one stop window to all such procedures. So that when the file moves out of the office it has to not go to another office. There should be real time tracking of the file number so that the applier can find where the file has been struck. Government can make all these procedures online which will make it easier and faster to monitor the file.

Regarding foreign investment government should provide separate window to them so that the foreign investors need not have to wait long for their projects to be cleared. It will ensure better flow of Investments in India.

Hence Red Tapism will be wrong word for the procedures that are strictly compulsory in a country like India where corruption is widespread, rather we should go for stricter but faster projects monitoring and screening.

Akshay Ratnawat