Ahmedabad: ‘Getting gun licence easier than opening a restaurant in Delhi,’ says Principal Economic Adviser

He said in Bengaluru, 35 permits are needed for setting up a restaurant, while in Delhi it is 26 permits and in Mumbai 22. “One of the permits that you need in Delhi is a Delhi Police Eating House permit. In order to get this, you need to get 45 documents. In order to get a gun licence, you need just 19,” he said while speaking about music permits, signage permits and bicycle delivery permits being among the “bizarre permits” needed for setting up a restaurant in India.

Sanyal also narrated case studies where it took 41 days to export a ready-made garment consignment from India to the United States through the sea route. Of these 41 days, 19 days the consignment remained in Indian territory and an additional 20-odd days was spent in transit through a sea route.

“In the ease of doing business rankings, while we have improved dramatically on many counts, we continue to be ranked 163 on enforcement on contracts… A simple enforcement of contract in India requires on an average 1,445 days,” he said, adding that this period in Indonesia was just 400 days and in New Zealand, it was 200 days.

“Without enforcement of contracts, you cannot have a functioning market economy and this is a very important reform we need to do. I will argue that this is the single biggest hurdle to India’s economic progress,” he said during his lecture organised by HL College of Commerce and Ahmedabad Education Society.

Lowest inflation

Talking about inflation, Sanyal said that India was seeing “the longest period of stable inflation” since independence. “While you are right that the onion prices did go up briefly, very sharply. But I am told that they have come back down. For most things, prices have been more and better anchored than ever before in Indian economic history. Certainly, since independence, we have had the longest period of stable inflation that we have every had,” he said during an interactive session with the audience.

He said the control over inflation did not happen by chance, but through an inflation targeting framework launched about five years ago where the targeted inflation was kept between 2-6%.