Opinion Fifth Column: Dynastic tremors

There is much he can do to bring this about without changing laws, although it would certainly help if GST happened and if it became easier to buy land. Surprisingly it was his own Minister for Food Processing who pointed this out last week when the ban on Maggi noodles was lifted by the Bombay High Court. Mrs Harsimrat Kaur Badal admitted on national television that there were too many inspectors involved in the food processing industry. She added that this prevented the industry from growing, despite nearly half of India’s agricultural produce rotting in fields. This kind of inspector raj exists in almost every field of enterprise and strangles growth. So far the Modi government has done nothing to change things. Until the inspector raj is abolished, it will remain very hard to create those 12 million new jobs India must create every year.

There are other reasons why India remains as business unfriendly as it was before Modi became prime minister. Has he noticed that one of the reasons why Indian industrialists have not started investing again is because the government takes too long to honour its contracts? Does he know that it takes the government an average of seven years to pay for the roads, power plants, tunnels and other heavy infrastructure that private companies build? Big infrastructure projects create millions of jobs, but companies that build them often go broke in the time the government takes to pay them. Payments are nearly always deliberately delayed by starting disputes and forcing arbitration. Even after this, officials hesitate to pay valid dues because of the fear of being charged with corruption. Unless this changes, more and more Indian businessmen will flee to countries that are more business friendly. The Prime Minister needs to find out how many have left in the past year.

He also needs to investigate the ugly consequences of his ill-advised new black money law. It has terrified investors because they know how the law can be misused by corrupt tax officials, now that they have the right to send entrepreneurs to jail for 10 years on black money charges that can be easily manufactured. As chief minister of Gujarat, Modi regularly held ‘camps’ for officials where he listened to their problems and told them what he needed done. He needs to revive this practice and begin with tax officials. It is true that corruption in tax departments is what the Finance Minister likes to call a ‘legacy issue’, but it is also true that nothing has changed.

Inexplicable absence of change affects another vital area. Major projects personally stopped by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, either out of stupidity or vengeance, remain stalled. The Prime Minister must remember that it was when these projects were stopped, causing huge investments to go waste, that the economy began to slow down. Why have his ministers not revived them?

How ironic that the Prime Minister is routinely reviled by the Gandhis for being ‘pro-corporate’. The Gandhis will revile him whatever he does. He will be reviled more for good things he does, because if he succeeds in making India a better country, dynastic rule ends forever.

@ tavleen_singh