[HN Gopher] I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)
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I tried starting a manufacturing unit in India (2020)
Author : godelmachine
Score : 474 points
Date : 2022-10-28 05:48 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (superr.in)
(TXT) w3m dump (superr.in)
| iKevinShah wrote:
| While this post is specifically about a manufacturing unit and
| usually will involve land, acquisition (if not already), NOCs (as
| shown in the post). This is standard and can / should / would be
| done digitally in near future, once all the units and officials
| have the awareness.
|
| To offer an alternative, starting business in India is extremely
| easy (at least Software Business), People have been running a
| business, filing GST, owning trademarks without leaving their
| apartment - Thanks to online services which ease these things.
| But yes, things are still difficult for manufacturing and land
| related things (and I assume it would be similar in other parts
| of the world, granted not so difficult).
| mindaslab wrote:
| Unless you are willing to pay bribes and have the right contacts.
| Business in India is impossible.
| lbriner wrote:
| There are two big problems with bureaucracy (apart from never
| knowing how to spell it). The first is that bureaucratic
| processes always seem to get bigger/longer/more complex and
| secondly, by its nature, it is hard to improve because the same
| bureaucracy you want to remove requires just as much effort to
| change as the effort you are trying to save.
|
| It would make more sense to time-limit some of these things and
| make the various departments reapply every 2 years if they think
| the process serves a purpose still. Perhaps they pay $1M as well.
| As soon as the cost is more than the benefit, all of a sudden we
| realise that we don't really need 100 differnt people to sign off
| on everything.
|
| Another easy win in this example would just be to make more of it
| electronic e.g. you apply in one place and they send out the
| relevant permissions to the various departments, some of whom
| could fill them in immediately/automatically and wire them back.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| It seems like the problem is that the author has a moral
| objection to paying bribes in an area where bribery is customary:
|
| > Obviously, they are playing "hard to get" to get me to pay some
| bribe and initiate the process. But after going through all this,
| I am not going to pay any bribe to anyone.
|
| And:
|
| > And they openly demanded bribes after waiting for four months.
|
| > So the Gram Panchayat NOC is stuck because of non payment of
| bribe.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| We should use different terms for what is currently covered by
| "bribes":
|
| Money paid illegally to gain an unfair advantage, that will
| result in local prosecution if discovered and is not the usual
| practise is a "bribe". No one should pay those.
|
| Money paid illegally to gain normal access/approvals/licenses
| etc, where it is entirely normal to pay and unlikely to lead to
| local prosecution is "extortion".
|
| Op isn't really paying a bride, he's being extorted.
| [deleted]
| dottedmag wrote:
| India Penal code, 171E.
|
| Up to 1 year in prison.
| agileAlligator wrote:
| > It seems like the problem is that the author has a moral
| objection to paying bribes
|
| Duh?
| lelanthran wrote:
| >> It seems like the problem is that the author has a moral
| objection to paying bribes
|
| > Duh?
|
| It's only "Duh" because you snipped the qualifier out. It's
| not "Duh" if you read until the end of the sentence like you
| normally do:
|
| > in an area where bribery is customary
|
| See?
| primax wrote:
| I mean, isn't it extraordinarily clear that he doesn't want
| to pay bribes and that bribes are customary. Hence... duh?
| otikik wrote:
| The fact that a lot of people do it customarily doesn't
| preclude for it to me morally reprehensible.
|
| To bring it to the extremes: If I found myself visiting
| Germany during World War 2, I would still strongly object
| to killing jews, even if it was "customary" there.
|
| And since know this is a reductio-at-hitlerum, I will try
| again: I would not seek or consent or engage to having
| pedophilic sexual intercourse if I found myself in certain
| neighborhoods of Thailand, where apparently it is
| commonplace.
|
| Perhaps a bit less extreme: I would not expect someone who
| is a convinced vegetarian to start consuming meat when they
| arrive to my country just because meat is consumed in
| almost every meal here.
| agileAlligator wrote:
| It doesn't matter whether it is customary. I live about
| 200km away from where the author is, I have never paid a
| bribe in my life, and I never will. They make you sweat it
| out for 4-5 months and then eventually it gets done.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| In a region where bribery is customary, trying to get stuff
| done without bribes is a case of tilting at windmills. I
| applaud the author's willingness to stand up for his
| convictions, but realistically his options are to either pay
| the bribes or set up his business in a less corrupt region.
| An entrenched local bureaucracy can easily outlast a typical
| small business when it comes to a fight like this.
| sonthonax wrote:
| There's a distinction to be made between a small customary
| bribe to an seriously underpaid state employee, and a
| larcenous bribe to a high official.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Bribes scale up. How much is the underpaid state employee
| "tipping out" to his boss? Or had to pay to get the job in
| the first place?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Not according to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
|
| The FCPA basically says that as a representative of a US
| corporation (in my case, anyone at a Staff Engineer level
| or above), it's illegal to bribe an official of a foreign
| government.
|
| It does try to make a distinction (sort of) between the
| kinds of bribe you're talking about but in my FCPA
| training, that "distinction" boils down to "go ask your
| lawyer." The lawyer will just tell you how to do it in a
| way that doesn't look like a bribe, even though it still
| is.
| agileAlligator wrote:
| They are both immoral
| silon42 wrote:
| So it is a "tip" for quality of service.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a distinction to be made between a small customary bribe
| to an seriously underpaid state employee, and a larcenous
| bribe to a high official_
|
| Not really. If normalized, it's part of their expected
| compensation package. Practically speaking, I think I'd
| suck it up and pay the bribe in the author's position. But
| I'd know I was doing wrong.
| LeanderK wrote:
| > If normalized, it's part of their expected compensation
| package.
|
| But it already is normalised. I think this is morally
| difficult because it is customary, expected and if you
| refuse you will not get anything done but also won't
| change anything. So what have you gained?
|
| I don't think you can fight corruption this way, you just
| can't do it alone.
| [deleted]
| egorfine wrote:
| Exactly. This is what the rest of the world usually says on
| the first encounter with "tips culture" in the US.
|
| As I see it, cultures are different and one thing that is
| considered an absolute taboo in one culture might be
| _customary_ in another. Tips in the US are customary yet at
| the same time they are offensive in Japan. Bribes are killing
| the economy in my country yet it makes economy moving in
| India.
|
| PS: I personally hate corruption more than anything.
| otikik wrote:
| > Exactly. This is what the rest of the world usually says
| on the first encounter with "tips culture" in the US.
|
| I think my shock was greater when I discovered that
| lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery". In a lot
| of the western world that word it means things "having
| meetings" and perhaps "organizing PR campaigns". Straight
| up giving money to politicians is against the law.
| jeffdn wrote:
| This may sound like a distinction without a difference,
| but it is explicitly illegal to give money directly to
| politicians in the United States. Lobbying is giving
| money to their campaign committees, which get them
| elected or re-elected. It is also explicitly very illegal
| for campaign committees to use their funds to do anything
| for the candidate -- there are a huge[0] number[1] of
| politicians[2] who have been severely[3] penalized for
| flouting campaign finance laws. Further, there are severe
| restrictions on what the campaign committee can use their
| money for, which is largely restricted to travel for the
| campaign, advertising, and paying campaign staff.
|
| These are just some recent examples of federal
| politicians who have run afoul of these laws, but they
| apply at all levels of government, as well as to staff
| (both campaign staff and the official staff of elected
| officials).
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_D._Hunter
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson_Jr.
|
| [3]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Grimm_(politician)
| otikik wrote:
| Yes it is totally a meaningless distinction to me. On the
| level of "this is not gambling, because we use a virtual
| currency (that can be purchased with dollars)" that is
| prevalent on mobile video games these days. It is
| gambling, just with extra steps. And it is bribery, just
| with extra steps.
| Aunche wrote:
| >I think my shock was greater when I discovered that
| lobbying in the US means "literal legal bribery".
|
| This is what the internet thinking lobbying means because
| they just want to be angry at a thing without bothering
| to learn about it because that would expose their own
| political apathy. Lobbying in the US means the exact same
| things that it means in the rest of the world. Companies
| will donate a few thousand dollars, so that a legislature
| will hear them out, but the legislature doesn't have to
| listen to them. There is some sketchy stuff going on with
| campaign finance for sure, but it's no where near as bad
| as "legalized bribery."
| otikik wrote:
| > a few thousand dollars
|
| You might want to revise that assumption.
| Aunche wrote:
| You might want to revise your assumptions. These are the
| top lobbying recipients:
| https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-
| recipients. All things considered it's not a lot of
| money. The vast majority of lobbying spending goes
| towards mundane expenses like payroll at lobbying firms.
| The reason lobbying is so powerful is that regular people
| don't pay attention to actual legislation, so politicians
| spend too much of their time campaigning and end up
| outsourcing the hard work of writing legislation to the
| lobbyists. Regardless, it's definitely not "literal
| legalized bribery."
| otikik wrote:
| Using your own resource:
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders
|
| I believe that's at least 4 orders of magnitude higher
| than "thousands of dollars". I rest my case
| Aunche wrote:
| ...as I mentioned, the vast majority of this money goes
| towards things like paying people to read legislation,
| prepare presentations, and speak with politicians. It's
| not "literal legalized bribery."
| kumarvvr wrote:
| First time I am hearing about this. Could you elaborate on
| the Tips culture in US?
|
| Do you have any first hand or second hand experience with
| it?
| inkcapmushroom wrote:
| For waitstaff at a restaurant, baristas at a coffee shop,
| bartenders, or people giving personalized service (for
| example a tattoo artist) it's customary to give a tip of
| ~20% extra on top of the bill. The expectation is that
| extra money goes directly to the staff giving you the
| service, and you are expected to pay it; many of these
| services jobs are actually legally allowed to pay less
| than minimum wage with the expectation that the tips will
| cover the difference. You are allowed to give less if you
| feel the service wasn't satisfactory, or if it's an
| especially large bill, but to give no tip at all means
| you are a terrible person.
|
| From my experience most people working these jobs prefer
| the tips system the way it is because a lot of times it's
| in cash so they can fudge their tax numbers if they want
| (might not be true nowadays as less people use cash), and
| also because often they make more money through tips than
| minimum wage, and they think if tips were removed the
| restaurants would only pay them minimum wage.
| pjc50 wrote:
| US waitstaff aren't covered by minimum wage laws -
| effectively a very large component of their income is
| "variable compensation" through tips. This is "expected"
| to be 10-20%. The culture doesn't quite come out and say
| "you need to put down 10% more than the number stated on
| your bill in order for the person serving you to make
| rent", but if you don't it will be interpreted as an
| insult.
| sebstefan wrote:
| I wouldn't consider the author to be the problem.
| thunkshift1 wrote:
| This is not an honest take on 'ease of doing business in india'.
| What the author is trying to do is re-purpose his agricultural
| land for non agricultural use. For various socio-political
| reasons this is big no-no in many states in India and is known to
| be a very long winding and drawn out process because the govt
| does not want agricultural land to be re-purposed. I expected
| something along the lines of 'I tried to setup a unit on land
| that I already have which allows this'. Note that agricultural
| land goes for a pittance compared to non na one. Author probably
| tried to pull a fast one onthe govt.
| RxVhmD5v wrote:
| Thanks for the context. I remember this when this blog made the
| rounds originally. Didn't realize it's the same one that made
| HN front page again. Interesting that this is being floated
| around when India is trying hard to make a good foray into
| manufacturing. On a related note, a former central bank (RBI)
| governor is trying to sabotage India's manufacturing
| aspirations. Inimical forces that aspirational Indians will
| face while they dig out of the current mess is unimaginably
| powerful.
| boole1854 wrote:
| > Author probably tried to pull a fast one onthe govt.
|
| In what sense is the author trying to pull a fast one? They own
| agricultural land. It is legal to convert agricultural-use land
| to non-agricultural-use land. There is a legal procedure for
| doing so. The author is trying to follow the procedure. The
| procedure turns out to be very difficult, and they publicize
| this fact. Where is the 'fast one' being pulled and who is it
| being pulled on?
| thunkshift1 wrote:
| Why dont you try building a residential property or factory
| on a land zoned for public parks and tell me how that goes in
| your country?
| asdff wrote:
| Most US cities as they exist today would not exist if you
| could not convert agricultural land to other uses. Where
| does suburbia come from? Former farms.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| ...the author owns the land he is trying to build on, which
| is very different than trying to build something in the
| middle of a public park.
| closetohome wrote:
| That caught my eye as well. If I wanted to buy some
| agricultural land in my state and convert it to industrial
| manufacturing, I would be mired in red tape for _years_.
| fareesh wrote:
| Missing was the grease to turn the wheels of bureaucracy
| clivefx wrote:
| This is almost identical to the process of setting up a
| manufacturing facility here in the bay area. Difference is that
| you never do all this yourself. You use permit sherpas and
| general contractors to handle most of the paperwork. Source: done
| it three times
| e-_pusher wrote:
| Do you have any contacts you recommend for this process?
| aktuel wrote:
| Not surprised. The amount of paperwork I had to fill out just as
| a tourist in India already boggled my mind. I had to fill out
| basically the same information three times over just between the
| airport and the hotel.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rockyj wrote:
| I assume building a manufacturing on agricultural land will be
| hard, what about government designated "manufacturing / SEZ
| (special economic)" zones?
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| this reads like the main quest from a RPG
| captn3m0 wrote:
| Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24106545
| (with a few comments from the author as well).
|
| The author had added a correction to the post (12th August 2020)
| stating that this was a mistake, and that the actual procedure
| was much less cumbersome:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20200812093618/https://superr.in...
|
| > It has been bought to my attention that there was a mistake by
| an entry level employee.
|
| > So the Revenue Department itself was supposed to get all the
| NOCs required by going to all those offices, but an entry level
| employee forgot to add my file to the list of NA's to be done.
|
| > [...] But PLEASE UNDERSTAND that "it was a mistake" in filing
| by an Entry Level Employee and normally this procedure takes less
| than 2 months and all the heavy lifting is done by the Revenue
| Department, Collector Office.
|
| Tweet from the author about the correction:
| https://twitter.com/mrohanshah/status/1293170591441104902
|
| But the correction was removed after a while, so maybe a bit of
| clarification will help.
| rohan_shah wrote:
| Hey! I'm the author and here's the clarification:
|
| That was the official response I got from the district
| administration so had to post it. Also was being pressured by
| the government (indirectly) to take it down. So that was all
| bs. Next update I'll give is when I will have solved the
| problem.
| rag-hav wrote:
| > Also was being pressured by the government (indirectly) to
| take it down
|
| Why am I not surprised.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| > Also was being pressured by the government (indirectly) to
| take it down
|
| Do you mind sharing how?
| hionnode wrote:
| So, it's still pending ?
| _448 wrote:
| Here is Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys, explaining the
| early days of Infosys :)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IuqHUA2mQY
| mprovost wrote:
| Also the father in law of the new UK prime minister...
| nisegami wrote:
| This might be the worst thing I have heard in weeks.
| karterk wrote:
| Here's the 2022 edition:
| https://twitter.com/mrohanshah/status/1579829414916784128
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| > Yes, you need to obtain "permission" before you build any
| manufacturing structure on your own land with your own money.
|
| I don't understand why this is phrased as incredulous. Are there
| countries where this isn't the case? Just because you own the
| land -which you don't, you merely have a title that grants you
| the exclusive, but limited, usage rights of that land- does not
| mean you are free to just build whatever you want?
|
| That said, Indian paperwork is famous for being Futurama levels
| of bureaucracy with Balkan levels of bribery. It's why giant
| corporations just don't bother with India, and why small store
| owners just don't even bother: just run your business until they
| crack down, which they won't as long as you keep a low profile.
| yrgulation wrote:
| > Balkan levels of bribery.
|
| Yeah think again.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| think again because "there's no bribes in the balkan" (rural
| cops in the balkan will pull you over for literally nothing
| just to make you pay them to go away again) or "it's so much
| worse than the balkan" (I won't argue that one, it really is)
| yrgulation wrote:
| The latter. It may be bad in the balkans, which it is, but
| nowhere near as bad as in other places. Either way both
| regions will improve. If anything, i'd invest now even if i
| wouldnt be able to exploit that investment. Nationalism
| aside i think india has a bright future. The balkans will
| end up in the eu as well if the eu doesnt break up. Worth
| investing there too.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Investing and "opening a business" are two very different
| things though. I'd definitely invest in India (BRIC is
| about to loose China, but the rest are still improving
| year over year at a rate that looks sustainable), but I'm
| not mad enough to try to actually open a physical
| business there. It's kind of a well-known bureaucratic
| black hole in economics circles. The best you can hope
| for is to buy an existing company (whether that's
| outright buying, or "buying" through some contractual
| subsidiary/merger/etc. arrangement)
| yrgulation wrote:
| Do you even need to open business? I'd just buy land near
| promising areas, say near where motorways are likely to
| be built, or regions with tourist potential (ie tall
| mountains, as snow will be at a premium in the future,
| thermal water reserves, agricultural potential, etc).
| That in itself can be good business. Buy it and leave it
| there for a while. Unlike china, india will indeed take a
| different trajectory - if it doesnt go down the route of
| petty nationalism. Similarly, i'd invest in real estate
| in the balkan region or moldavia should it join the eu. I
| know in some countries once they joined the eu they
| 10x'd.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| So India has a process for turning agricultural land to
| manufacturing land. Compare that to Europe, where such endeavours
| are often impossible completely (if you are a landowner), and
| quite easy (if you are a local government). We've had this guy
| [1] protest on TV lately. Sums it up well.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mnB5Q5Hay4 ... translated
| subtitles are decent. Money shot: "It's like that: We can't all
| sit with a MacBook in Berlin in a cafe, sipping on a chai latte
| and programming the tenth dating app. Sometimes, someone has to
| work with their hands."
| akhilramolla wrote:
| Try the signle window policy of Telangana.
| https://ipass.telangana.gov.in/about.aspx
| moffkalast wrote:
| Dhruvok and Jalammad at Telangana
| nikanj wrote:
| There is a single window, but it's only open on the third
| monday of every other month, and the person manning it is
| illiterate - unless you pay them a small fee to activate their
| reading skills.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| I am from Hyderabad. Can you share any success stories with
| this? I am very interested. Do you have any first hand
| knowledge or experience with this system?
| klausjensen wrote:
| ~5 years ago, I hired three Indian developers. They asked me if
| we could set up an Indian legal entity, so that they could just
| get regular salaries in India with tax payments, deductions etc
| taken care of. I agreed and we got it done.
|
| One of the worst business-decisions of my life. The amount of red
| tape, stupid rules, corruption, signatures, stamps, showing up
| physically in a certain office etc etc... Mindblowing.
|
| I will not tire you with all the details, but to this day, Indian
| tax authorities still hold money hostage, that they agree my
| Indian company is owed (GST refunds). But all attempts to
| actually get the money back falls on deaf ears. We have sent
| experts to the relevant tax offices etc, but the ONLY guy who can
| handle it is never there, refuses to deal with it, then says we
| need to go somewhere else - where we are sent back etc etc. Sent
| around in circles, basically - with everybody recognizing the
| money is in fact owed...
|
| I will never do business in India again. Happy to work with
| Indian developers (I still do), but they will get paid as
| freelancers and deal with the red tape on their end.
| primitivesuave wrote:
| I came to the comments to warn exactly this, perhaps more
| emphatically.
|
| Do not set up a legal entity in India. It will become a never-
| ending void where money and time go to die. The bureaucracy is
| hilariously inept and bloated, and if you are not willing to
| pay the bribes or for some entity to navigate the systemic
| corruption on your behalf, you will end up in OP's situation.
|
| Source: hired many Indian developers in recent years for a SV
| startup
| dirkg wrote:
| also at every level, where you are expected to file forms or
| deal with any officials, you will be asked to pay some bribe,
| and there will be 'agents' who offer to do it for you using
| whatever illegal means they can, for a 'fee', and in many
| cases they are the only feasible way of getting it done. This
| happens in every corrupt economy/country but in India its an
| art form and taken to its logical extreme.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Do not set up a legal entity in India._
|
| I am curious to know how the Stripe Atlas-like services from
| razorpay.com and clear.in have worked out for folks here in
| dealing with govt-facing work?
| grepfru_it wrote:
| When I visited a Cisco office in India, I noticed there was a
| prominent notice of business application and listed the
| Indian owner of the company. I thought that was interesting
| and went digging into India law about ownership. When I came
| out of that rabbit hole I immediately had zero interest in
| starting up in India. Simply because of the bureaucracy and
| would be way more wink-wink-$$$-nudge-nudge than what I'm
| even used to today with my dealings in the West Indies. Then
| I read the article and by the time I got to the Irrigation
| NOC I was nodding my head 'yup, exactly what i expected'.
|
| It's very easy to read these requirements and agree that
| there are natural resources that (a) you don't want exploited
| and (b) want preserved, so all of these hurdles are
| necessary. But the timeline involved and the MULTIPLE bribes
| really drives home the fact that reforms are needed.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Well, I expected this article to be about bribes, because I
| assume it happens a lot. However, there were no bribes.
| Does anyone have actual experience with bribes in India
| (not traffic police)?
|
| Edit: sorry, one person openly asked for a bribe, the
| Panchayat. I would like to understand more about this. Do
| they just ask for an amount?
| bornfreddy wrote:
| I read the article a bit differently... Whenever there is
| a "no bribes" note, all went well - elsewhere there were
| obstacles which could probably be solved with bribes.
| nabusman wrote:
| IME the bribes are often not asked directly but instead
| the people in the office throw up insurmountable
| obstacles so that you initiate the conversation of
| bribes. I don't know why they do this, maybe because it
| puts them in a better negotiating position?
| bombcar wrote:
| Soliciting a bribe is probably illegal.
|
| But accepting a gift to do your actual job, how could
| that be illegal, hmmmm?
| bluGill wrote:
| If you go first you are offering a bribe. If the police
| are investigating offering a bribe is entrapment and your
| lawyer will run with that in court.
|
| In short it is a way to avoid getting caught.
| elmomle wrote:
| Not the OP but typically bureaucrats will talk about fees
| and fines, which continue without documentation of their
| purpose (at which point they are explicitly bribes).
|
| Baksheesh, whereby people expect a tip ahead of time if
| you want decent service, is quite common in India and is
| essentially another form of corruption, especially when
| practiced by police, bureaucrats, etc.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| House/plot registration is a common place where most
| folks encounter bribe. The person/company selling you the
| house/plot will ask you to bring INR 15-20K in cash to
| the registrar office. It'll be paid to an agent who is a
| conduit.
|
| Driving license is another. You'll see tens of touts in
| and around the govt office; you pay about INR 2-3K and
| get your drivers' license. Again, a tout/agent will
| handle it for you end to end.
|
| Both are very well oiled machine; money goes all the way
| up to politicians. Getting a posting in those offices in
| turn requires millions of rupees of bribe, besides
| influence, caste angle etc.,
|
| Speaking from personal experience.
| tkk23 wrote:
| India is huge. Could there be a district with enough
| integrity that it can become the place to establish a company
| in India?
| [deleted]
| primitivesuave wrote:
| I _highly_ doubt it. Bribery is baked into the culture.
| Everyone takes bribes, and the act of solicitation does not
| have the negative connotations or legal ramifications that
| it would have elsewhere. Most Indian people who pay regular
| bribes are on friendly terms with the people they pay
| bribes to.
|
| Also, political parties are mostly funded by bribery, and
| rely on literally buying the votes of villagers to maintain
| power. Any political entity with the power to actually
| tackle corruption would have little incentive to do so.
| nabusman wrote:
| I think the state of Bihar is trying to do that (just
| armchair analysis from reading the news)
| ummonk wrote:
| Bihar is run by elected thugs and is the last place in
| India that an honest business would want to go.
| boruto wrote:
| Seriously, Is this a joke. Bihar would be right at the
| bottom of states if I ever setup shop.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Wondering--is it easier to buy an existing entity?
| loudmax wrote:
| Possibly, if for no other reason than the existing entity
| has the right connections, knows how to navigate the
| framework, and knows who to bribe to make things happen.
| m12k wrote:
| In the meantime companies like remote.com and similar have
| sprung up, providing "employer of record" services. Basically
| they let you outsource the act of having a company in a given
| country and employing people through it, much like how Stripe
| lets you outsource the whole merchant account thing for
| payments.
|
| It seems that whenever there's red tape, there's a business
| opportunity in paving over it and providing a sane interface on
| top of it instead.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| That is the business model of TriNet, paving over the hassles
| of operating in different US states.
| 19h wrote:
| I would like to second this recommendation. We've been using
| remote.com and hiring internationally suddenly became very
| possible and we can't be any more happy.
|
| Before this hiring internationally was a pure nightmare to
| the point that we simply didn't accept international remote
| developers.
|
| Thanks Remote!
| vwcx wrote:
| And how has that shell set-up been for your international
| team members?
|
| In my experience, it added just enough of a layer of
| obscuration to perpetuate a caste system, similar to how
| full time temps and vendors are currently treated in tech.
| US FTE employees had full HR support while Indian
| subcontractors had really poor HR/payroll/benefits
| resources from Remote. YMMV
| awestroke wrote:
| Blame the employer, not remote.com. The employer decides
| what benefits they will pay remote.com to give to
| employees
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| Maybe you can compensate with higher pay?
| chaghalibaghali wrote:
| As someone currently working on the employee side of a
| remote.com setup, it's been great.
|
| They have a much better understanding of my local laws,
| tax systems etc than the US-based HR and Payroll
| departments at companies I've worked for in the past.
| ceoatpiedpiper wrote:
| Hi , how do you get hired via Remote ? All I can see is
| services to hire for employers.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| You get hired by a company that uses Remote (or Deel).
| synu wrote:
| Or Pilot.co
| nightpool wrote:
| Remote isn't a hiring platform, it's a service companies
| can use to manage HR compliance. You get hired by the
| company, and your employment goes through Remote for
| compliance with local laws.
| hinkley wrote:
| My intuition is that bribes would tend to scale with the
| square root of the size of the enterprise, so working with a
| large company would reduce your overhead versus talking to
| the government yourself.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| loceng wrote:
| Well, certainly someone got your money.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| BilalBudhani wrote:
| Being an Indian who ran a sole proprietorship company which is
| suppose to be relatively easier with bureaucracy I strongly
| relate to this comment.
|
| Not only the ease of doing business is non-existent but also
| the entire running the company's operations is exhaustive and
| riddled with inconsistencies regulations. Plus, the amount of
| reporting required to stay compliant is never ending.
|
| Every month you will have to file for multiple GST reports,
| then file quarterly GST reports again to reconcile. On the
| other hand, file for quarterly advance tax, then finally file
| for annual income tax. To top it of, GST rules changes so
| frequently that the entire book keeping process becomes complex
| & convoluted.
|
| You will end up spending more time in keeping all the things in
| check with the regulation instead of spending time on growing
| the business itself.
| j45 wrote:
| I've heard some countries don't have the same level of rule of
| law (and corruption instead) as anticipated.
| karterk wrote:
| Back when GST was introduced, they asked all exporters of
| software services to pay the 18% GST and then claim a refund
| because exports are exempted. This was before they introduced a
| process to apply for a "NOC" (which must be renewed
| periodically I think). So, I duly paid GST for the first couple
| of months.
|
| 5 years later, I'm yet to receive the refunds. First, they said
| that they were authorized to only sanction refunds for
| exporters of physical goods and then they said that this is
| handled by the State government, who said that it was handled
| by the Central. Finally Central accepted that they are in-
| charge of the refund, but by then COVID happened and I could
| not follow up for 2 years. In May, when I tried to claim the
| refund again, they said that this refund pertains to 2016 and
| it's difficult to "reopen" the accounts for that year and
| that's handled by yet another department. So, they have written
| to them to ask for the process. No replies after two emails.
| Story continues...
| hawk_ wrote:
| That sounds awful. Curious to hear if you were able to avoid
| GST payments in later years as should be the case for
| exports.
| solardev wrote:
| Are you sure these aren't just thinly-veiled requests for a
| bribe?
| BilalBudhani wrote:
| This is awful.
|
| I had to apply for Foreign Export of Services Certificate as
| well which turned out to be the PAN number.
|
| They also made it impossible for services exporters to claim
| GST back on business expenses.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| My family's liquor shop was forced to close because our
| accountants could not keep up with the constant GST changes.
| They quit and we could not find another on short notice. The
| worst part was that the shop was on the hook for the unpaid
| taxes of upstream suppliers - money that is yet to be fully
| refunded after years.
|
| India's legal systems and the enforcement of laws are one of
| the biggest drags on a country with immense potential.
| klausjensen wrote:
| This is exactly what happened to me.
| codegeek wrote:
| I am a US Citizen (Indian Origin) who has a US company and a
| subsidiary in India as well. It is certainly very difficult and
| cumbersome to set up entity in India but it is possible as long
| as you have a few things sorted out:
|
| - Have a local point of contact. If you are not Indian yourself
| or at least of Indian Origin, you will need to have a good
| local contact ideally your lead tech. who can be part of the
| entity
|
| - Find a good Chartered Accountant/CA (equivalent to CPA in US)
| who can help you set it up. DO NOT DO IT by yourself
|
| - For a US based company, I had to do something called
| "Appostille" which is equivalent of a Notary but for Foreign
| stuff.
|
| I can recommend the company we used that we still use. We pay
| them about 20,000 INR per month (about $250/Month) for a team
| of roughly 15 developers and they do all the setup, taxes,
| payroll, filings etc etc. PM me if anyone is interested.
| blobbers wrote:
| This is precisely why upwork exists.
| reactspa wrote:
| Two anecdotes from me (based in USA).
|
| 1) India's IRS still owes me tax-refund from 1998, 1999, 2000,
| 2001. I gave up trying to recoup long ago.
|
| 2) I inherited an inheritance in India from someone passing
| away (who died without a will). A family member managed to have
| everything put in their name.
|
| Mindboggling.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| You should watch the Japanese movie ikiru - that's how I felt
| when I tried to navigate the kafkaesque GST system. I received
| a letter, and just to find out who I received from, I was
| shuffled around between 7 offices in just my cities with a
| total travel of 60 kilometers (my city is itself only 15km
| across lol).
| pythonbase wrote:
| Perhaps they were looking for some under-the-table deal,
| commonplace in the government offices of the subcontinent, that
| you failed to realise. Here, you need to may money to get your
| money back.
| [deleted]
| Lutger wrote:
| It's a signal you need to pay a bribe, sorry. That's the only
| way to get something done.
| soperj wrote:
| > We have sent experts to the relevant tax offices etc, but the
| ONLY guy who can handle it is never there, refuses to deal with
| it, then says we need to go somewhere else - where we are sent
| back etc etc. Sent around in circles, basically - with
| everybody recognizing the money is in fact owed...
|
| That sounds exactly like they're needing a bribe, but you're
| too rooted in western ways of doing things that you don't
| realize it.
| draw_down wrote:
| cafard wrote:
| US citizens bribing foreign officials can be convicted of a
| felony under (I think it is) The Foreign Corrupt Practices
| act. Whether DOJ chases down three-developer scale stuff, or
| has only the staff for multi-zillion class bribes, I don't
| know.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| There have been many smaller companies charged with FPCA
| violations and even in cases where no charges were brought,
| the investigation cost the company enough to basically put
| it out of business.[0]
|
| [0]: https://fcpablog.com/2017/05/24/hyperdynamics-another-
| fcpa-i...
| bluGill wrote:
| not just the us. most of europe has similar laws.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Paying an official to do something they were going to do
| (eventually) anyway does not qualify as a bribe.
| ninju wrote:
| citation please :-)
|
| To me...if I have to pay someone to do their assigned job
| it seems like a bribe to me https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/bribe (using money to affect the
| conduct of a person)
| [deleted]
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _citation please :-)_
|
| 15 U.S. Code SS 78dd-1(b)
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Jesus. Please no one take that as legal advice. Paying a
| bribe to get preferential treatment (even if that
| treatment is just to get the person to do their actual
| job) is a bribe none the less.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Paying an official to perform their job (perform a
| "routine governmental action") is a _facilitating
| payment_ and is an exemption from the prohibitions of the
| Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78dd-1
|
| The point with a facilitating payment is that you've done
| everything that's actually required by law to e.g. get a
| business license and the official is still giving you the
| run-around, you are allowed to pay them. It doesn't apply
| in cases that relate to paying decision makers for
| contracts, for example.
|
| If you're thinking about doing this, you should
| absolutely consult a lawyer, but the post above is wrong
| on the general construction of the law.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| That's interesting. In the UK these would also be
| considered bribes. From a quick search the US and
| Australia are the the only countries with this principle.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, dude doesn't deserve getting downvoted as hard as
| he is. Neither the "You'll get killed by FCPA" nor the
| "FCPA lets you do this" comments are legal advice. But
| what you're saying is, in fact, true. It allows US
| companies to continue to be competitive in places where
| this stuff is expected.
| stefan_ wrote:
| It's an obvious exemption in FCPA that would be
| surprising to the majority of people, hence why I posted
| the gist of it. That earns you a "Jesus" by clueless
| people on HN these days.
| shrewduser wrote:
| it does sound a lot like a bribe to me.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Maybe. From the multitude of FCPA training I've had to
| endure, you can pay to have processing expedited if there
| is an official policy for it. You cannot pay $1K to the
| head of the office because he hints that it will speed
| things up.
|
| Technically, you're not even protected if you hire a
| local agent to do all of this for you.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| If you are paying them to do something they're supposed to
| do but refuse to do in a timely manner, that _may_ be
| legal. It 's called a facilitating payment or grease
| payment, and is an exception to the Foreign Corrupt
| Practices Act.
|
| Ask a real lawyer, obviously.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Yeah, I remember this from my compliance training because
| it was so ridiculous. It is just a type of bribe, but
| since it has a special name and a carve out it is
| potentially not a problem!
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I think it's a distinction that matters, morally. A
| regular bribe is paying an official to do something the
| law says the official shouldn't do. Whereas grease money
| is essentially paying the official to follow the law and
| do their job properly. The latter rewards the official
| for their show of tactical incompetence, but at least it
| isn't paying them to break the law on your behalf. More
| like it's paying them to _stop_ breaking the law.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| As far as I can make out facilitation payments are a
| legal exception in US law, but they are illegal in Indian
| law. This is definitely in the ask a lawyer before you go
| making this kind of payment territory.
| trustingtrust wrote:
| As someone who lives in Maharashtra and I am close with people in
| manufacturing I can confirm that the corruption and mafia here is
| on a different level. You can't get anything done unless you know
| people and are willing to bribe at every step.
| agileAlligator wrote:
| As soon as I read the title, I knew the article would be pure
| pain.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| Systems like this are set up to be almost impossible to get
| through because the higher the cost to go through the legitimate
| process the more likely you are to pay a bribe, and the higher
| that bribe will have to be.
| [deleted]
| ssivark wrote:
| (from August 2020, FWIW)
|
| I wonder what it would take to digitize this whole process, so
| that a single application can trigger all the relevant approval
| requests, and the overall status can be tracked -- both by the
| applicant, and at the systemic level to see whether certain
| departments become (cough) bottlenecks.
| newyankee wrote:
| The biggest bottleneck is the power sharing between Central,
| State and local Govts with the judiciary acting as its own
| entity sometimes. By design a lot of entities would not want to
| cede power and control. This has been happening with the
| implementation of Goods and Service Tax (GST) in India which
| was considered politically unfeasible as recently as 10 years
| back
| newyankee wrote:
| I tried buying some land but it was very difficult to get some
| agri land without significant cash in the area i was looking for.
| Paperwork is never perfect, but to make it acceptable you need to
| feed the right people.
| gumby wrote:
| About a decade ago I did set up an entity in India which employed
| people. However I did it as a JV with a subgroup of one of the
| big dynastic families. They had to own 50%+1 share, I am a PIO so
| owned the rest.
|
| They had all the connections so setting things up was quick. Then
| we needed a factory so I visited a bunch of factories owned by
| the conglomerate. We picked one and they set aside some space to
| build our stuff. We didn't get soaked in that deal; I think that
| was because the factory wasn't really making much money and they
| figured the JV would throw off more cash.
|
| We also worked with some other suppliers; I visited them
| directly, negotiated terms, and only then brought in the big guns
| from our partner. I figured that would mean we'd get the best
| deal: either the special deal for a new customer or the special
| deal for one of the big guys, whichever was cheaper. The latter
| was always cheaper, but I always wondered: would that have been
| true had we not already negotiated a ceiling on the price?
|
| And in the end...the person assigned to be the CEO of the JV by
| the partner, a nice guy who seemed to work hard...embezzled most
| of the capital!
|
| But my big lessons were: 1 - work with a partner who already
| knows whose hand to shake and 2 - don't try to do anything new;
| modify an existing structure. In that, the latter case is similar
| to what apparently is the standard way to open a restaurant in
| America: don't rent an empty space and fit it out as a
| restaurant; instead take over the lease and permits from someone
| who went bankrupt doing that, and run your restaurant on their
| kitchen setup and permits.
| anovikov wrote:
| If building something on agricultural land is hard, it is good:
| it is called agricultural for a reason. Maybe buying a parcel of
| industrial or commercial land would have ended up cheaper?
| rohan_shah wrote:
| Author of the article here:
|
| All the land in India is agricultural by default. Except in
| some desert states.
| newyankee wrote:
| Fellow Pune resident here. I think there is a potential for a
| transparency startup here. Parts of stuff like these exist. I
| would buy you lunch/ beer/ whatever to learn from some of
| your experiences.
| rohan_shah wrote:
| I'm building a startup for solving this. Let's meet.
| Twitter DM @ mrohanshah
| godelmachine wrote:
| Hey author, this is OP. Thanks for documenting your ordeal.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| Really? Lots of land parcels are identified as Non-
| agricultural.
| RxVhmD5v wrote:
| Yeah. His motivations seem a bit suspicious. Is he so
| ignorant to claim all land in India is agricultural land.
| programmer_dude wrote:
| Sure it's not 100% but more like 50.4%.
| programmer_dude wrote:
| Guess which country has the most arable land in the world?
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| > Yes, you need to obtain "permission" before you build any
| manufacturing structure on your own land with your own money.
|
| > I understand the reasoning behind the need for a PWD NOC. _What
| if they're planning to build a road through the land on which we
| intend to do our construction._ It's certainly worth notifying
| the public works department before we do any construction
| activity.
|
| Seems strange to me that it is on you to check that the
| government isn't planning on building on the land _you own_.
| [deleted]
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| The time spend is the request for a bribe.. waiting 8h at a
| checkpoint or the local police station is the punishment for not
| paying up.
| rippercushions wrote:
| This kind of ridiculousness is why governments serious about
| attracting enterprise have "one stop shops" for sorting out the
| paperwork. Here's the one for Thailand, which is hardly a paragon
| of governmental efficiency, but is a _lot_ friendlier to small
| businesses than India.
|
| https://osos.boi.go.th/One-Stop/home/
| giva wrote:
| > Yes, you need to obtain "permission" before you build any
| manufacturing structure on your own land with your own money.
| This permission is called the NA or Non-Agricultural Certificate.
|
| Well, I though it was this way everywhere in the world. In
| Europe, at least, you cannot build anything on agricultural land
| unless it is a n agricultural structure or you get the
| classification changed, which is not easy.
| rob74 wrote:
| This! In Germany it's simply not possible to declare a parcel
| of your own choosing as "Non-Agricultural". Land is of course
| taken out of agricultural use and reclassified for industrial
| or residential use, but only in predefined areas. Of course
| there's lobbying and speculation involved, because
| reclassification multiplies the value of the parcels, but it
| takes much longer than a year from the first proposal until you
| can actually build something, and certain conditions have to be
| met, e.g. good accessibility by road, other infrastructure
| (power supply, sewage etc.)...
| tomcam wrote:
| Very similar in most parts of the US
| protomolecule wrote:
| Same thing in Russia. All land is classified according to its
| use and changing intended use is a lot of paperwork.
| mminer237 wrote:
| In the US you typically have to make sure the land is in the
| right "zoning" for manufacturing, but that's typically not too
| hard to find. How easy it is to get preexisting land changed
| varies widely. If it's agricultural land, that often won't need
| rezoned in places with cumulative zoning:
| https://matthewminer.name/law/outlines/1L/2nd+Semester/LAW+5...
|
| Then you probably need a building permit, but they usually just
| need the plans for the building to be built for that.
| dreen wrote:
| In Poland atm you can't even buy farmland unless you are a
| registered farmer in the local county already. Its a new rule
| and hopefully they remove it cause its insane.
|
| And then of course you can't just build on it. You may attempt
| to reclassify it into building land but from TFA it seems the
| process is just as tedious as in India and definietely not
| guaranteed to succeed.
|
| Theres a big chance, once you get to the building, you will
| have to monitor the builders constantly otherwise they rob you
| blind. From my friend in India I was told they have the same
| problem.
| orangepurple wrote:
| First you have to ask yourself why would such a rule exist?
| Sometimes it is done in the interest of national security. Or
| you run into issues such as a desert kingdom purchasing
| rights to use massive quantities of farmland where water is
| already scarce. See Saudi Alfalfa in California. Or why Bill
| Gates is the biggest private farm land owner in the United
| States at around 242,000 acres and climbing. You need to look
| past the knee jerk assumption that the government is
| schizophrenic. There may be greater forces at play this
| intends to put the brakes on without overtly prohibiting
| those activities.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| This reply is the perfect "Chesterson's Fence"!
| dreen wrote:
| The policy doesn't make sense. Farming benefits massively
| from economies of scale, and farmland in most of Eastern
| Europe is already very fragmented due to "agricultural
| reforms" in 45. If you're not familiar with that situation
| it is you who need to ask themselves some questions. Look
| at how messed up Haiti is, much of that results from the
| way they delt with land ownership. Every family owing their
| own little scrap of land sounds nice, but makes zero
| economic sense.
|
| I didn't say the goverment is schizofrenic, but their
| message certainly plays on xenophobic fears. Its clearly a
| part of a populist agenda, because we need people with
| capital buying up land, but its super easy to frame this as
| a malevolent action to less educated people, and that is
| what is being done for purely political reasons. And this
| policy is exactly what I would call "overly prohibiting": I
| can't sell my farmland even to local farmers who live a few
| miles away cause they happen to be in a different couty.
| Cmon thats just stupid.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| Yeah, that statement is a bit of a hyperbole.
|
| I think in the US this is called Zoning and you need Zoning
| permissions or something similar.
| newyankee wrote:
| Everything is right in theory. This article is about how
| difficult it is for a small entrepreneur, you essentially need
| big pockets and right connections to start something even very
| small.
|
| All this does is creates a set of entrenched local businesses
| which run hand-in-hand very transparently with local political
| interests. This is the whole reason Western folks never
| understand why China succeeded so fast, it is because they made
| the trade-offs necessary for growth. For rapid growth you
| cannot make everyone happy right away.
|
| The good thing about India is that e-Governance initiatives
| have at least provided some transparency and understanding for
| the average person which did not exist before.
| giva wrote:
| Had this article been the difficulties to build a
| manufacturing plan on an area reserved for industrial use, I
| would agree. But I don't believe that changing the
| destination of agricultural land has to be a fast and easy
| process.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| It should be fast and easy, but not necessarily guaranteed.
| You should be able to get a decision quickly regardless of
| whether it's 'yes' or 'no'.
| Vespasian wrote:
| The idea itself is sound and reasonable. If you let people
| built wherever you'll find yourself out of arable land in an
| instant.
|
| What seems overly complex and inefficient is the amount of
| permissions and the subpermissions.
|
| Even to my German bueorcracy adjusted ears this sounds like a
| great way to extract bribes and fees. At least the process here
| is quite clear (but not always fast)
| kragen wrote:
| This does not seem sound and reasonable. Yes, India has been
| civilized for 5000 years, with the result that it's very
| densely populated; but "very densely populated" is only 418
| people per square kilometer, less than twice Germany's 232.
|
| 53% of India's land area is arable land: 790 people per
| square kilometer of arable land, or 1270 square meters of
| arable land per person. I feel like 100 square meters of
| factory area per person is more than adequate, which would
| decrease the arable land by some 8% if you built it all on
| previously cultivated fields, rather than mountains or
| forests or deserts (or polders!); but that assumes you're
| employing the entire population in the factories.
|
| Some factories do have lower density than that; for example,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI was 370 acres (150
| hectares in modern units) and employed 5500 people at its
| closure in 02006. This works out to 270 square meters per
| worker. But now
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Fremont_Factory occupies
| that space and some additional (175 hectares total) and
| employs 22000 people, 80 square meters per person, despite
| extensive automation.
|
| If some of those factories are producing fertilizers,
| tractors, irrigation equipment, and food products, converting
| some fields into factories might actually increase your
| agricultural production rather than decreasing it. Germany
| harvests 7 tonnes of cereals per hectare that's planted in
| cereals; India, despite being tropical, harvests only 3.3:
| https://tradingeconomics.com/india/cereal-yield-kg-per-
| hecta...
|
| Allocating scarce resources like land by means of capitalism
| is maybe not ideal unless you can make more of them
| (polders!), but it does seem to work better than allocating
| them by bureaucracy and laws.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Population density of Nederlands: >500 people/sq.km.
| kragen wrote:
| See, with industrialization you can support higher
| population densities than India can.
| franciscop wrote:
| I have a funny story from Spain:
|
| My father's has an orange field, so at some point he wanted to
| dig a well to get some water.
|
| He went to the City Hall, got all the tricky paperwork and
| applied for permission to build it. Months passed by without
| hearing anything, and at some point he just forgot about it,
| assuming he'd be denied silently. There's some people in the
| city hall don't like him too much BTW.
|
| Few years later an official from the government came, "I'm here
| to check on the well you built", to which my father was of
| course confused "what well? You never gave me permission to dig
| it!". Apparently and according to this official, the normal
| thing to do is that you apply for permission, then build the
| project and finally then you'll receive the permission
| eventually, so he'd assumed my father had the well built
| already. Since as mentioned some people were against him, he
| was also not gonna officially break the law and build it before
| getting permission.
| pelorat wrote:
| A friend of mine in Spain bought a masia, but was not allowed
| to tear down the old building to build a new house (protected
| heritage or something, even though it was junk). So the way
| around it was to do it in steps. Replace it whole building
| part by part. So now he has a new house (but it looks like
| the old one in shape), but there's nothing left of the
| original.
| jefftk wrote:
| Not limited to Spain: here in Somerville MA I see people
| doing this pretty often. They leave just enough of the
| building standing (two walls?) that it counts as a remodel
| and they can keep all the zoning exemptions from the old
| structure. If they tore it down entirely they wouldn't be
| able to build anything nearly as large.
|
| Completely legal, but a good illustration of how even our
| new (and honestly much improved) zoning is too restrictive.
| Mizza wrote:
| Seen this a lot in Philadelphia lately. Part of one outer
| wall remains standing, everything else is totally destroyed
| and built new around it. Creates some interesting looking
| collage-buildings.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| This is the main way people under the California Coastal
| Commission's authority did projects up until I moved as
| well.
| giorgioz wrote:
| don't ask permission, ask forgiveness
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| That sometimes backfires. My dad built a fence while the
| application was pending. The city approved the application
| but made him tear down the fence anyway and rebuild it
| since he didn't have permission when it was first built.
| [deleted]
| ssmw wrote:
| This person forgot to pay the right people.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| India's obsession with paperwork is unceasing and baffling.
| Everything requires an application, even when everything can be
| done digitally. You need letters and stamps to get anything done.
|
| Case in point: the "company stamps" that are required for
| everything you do with your business. From getting a debit card
| to changing the maturity instructions for a corporate deposit,
| you need to sign your name AND stamp it with your company stamp.
|
| The company stamp can be made by anyone for $1-2. It has no
| bearing on security at all. Yet, you need to carry it with you if
| you want to get anything done.
|
| It's utterly baffling. I can access my corporate bank account
| online and make any number of transactions, yet if I want to
| apply for a debit card, I need my company stamp and signatures
| from all directors.
|
| Why? I have no idea!
| swooni wrote:
| A company stamp isn't a security device any more than a
| signature. It's an abstraction similar to a "power of attorney"
| type thing. They are going away but has been used in Japan and
| China, including Hong Kong, as well.
| callamdelaney wrote:
| With so many people pointless busywork is a good way to keep
| people busy and 'employed'.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I remember buying a train ticket in Goa. This involved showing
| the passport and filling out multiple forms. It was pretty
| crazy.
| gautamdivgi wrote:
| Isn't train ticketing online now? I know my 75 yr old dad
| just does it at home on his laptop.
|
| Edit- echoing a comment further down. I got an Indian visa.
| It was done online and was emailed to me in 24hrs.
| [deleted]
| hef19898 wrote:
| That reminds of a story about an Indian couple travelling
| Europe. SO, obviously, within the Schengen countries you do
| not need additional visas, something foreign to said couple.
| So, they crossed Eu border by train and ended up in another
| country. Confused over what to do next, they talked to the
| next police officer they found, because the couple was _sure_
| they couldn 't just continue their journey without any
| further control. Explanations didn't work, so the easy
| solution was to use an official looking, but totally
| irrelevant, stamp to put on the back of their train tickets
| (in order to not cause confusion with the tickets or official
| passports). Source: I know the police officer in question.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Real question: What year? I notice there are lot of stories
| online about "20 years this crazy thing happened to me in
| India", but now no more. Example: You can do eVisa for India
| travel. Super easy online. Most train tickets you can buy
| online or via "concierge" (minor fee). Hotel booking? Yeah,
| that too, even smaller places via Internet "aggregator"
| websites. Travel in India is not so backwards as people
| think!
|
| I think the funniest and most embarassing story I have about
| travel in India: The first day in downtown Mumbai, I go to
| the train stain to buy a ticket for a Churchgate station a
| few stops away. Honestly, I have no idea what the price will
| be, but I assume 20-30 rupees. I only have 100 rupee notes. I
| go to the ticket window: Lady tells me: "5 rupees". I gasped,
| and looked at my 100 rupee note. She rejects my 100 rupee
| note! (She was not disrespectful; said: you will take all my
| change! Wait here; after next person, I can sell it to you.)
| Next person pays with _enough_ change, then me. All good. We
| both laughed. To put that in perspective, that is about 2-3
| Euro CENTS to ride the train!
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I was in Tunisia at the airport in Tunis for a departing
| flight. Having already checked online, I tried going through
| security with my electronic boarding pass. The security told me
| I needed my boarding pass. I pointed again to the electronic
| copy as politely as I could. The security said "this is
| Tunisia, you need the paper copy." XD
| eitally wrote:
| This happened to me in Mumbai several years ago. I had
| thankfully been forewarned, but there were military police
| checking boarding passes for entering passengers _outside_
| the airport, and no one without a paper boarding pass +
| appropriate government ID was allowed into the terminal. This
| was right up there with the "requirement" that business
| travelers in India provide a physical business card to the
| hotel when checking in. I haven't been a in few years, so
| hopefully that's at least no longer the case.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| What year? I cannot believe this was in the last 20 years.
| The "physical business card" thing never happened to me.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Is smoking still allowed there indoors (in the airport)?
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Not sure, I didn't notice. A lot of airports have a
| designated smoking room, but I think you're asking about
| smoking in general.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| It's probably banned then since. A few years ago people
| were lighting up cigarettes in the lobby, which was very
| odd to me.
| newsclues wrote:
| The results of British and east India company influences?
| protomolecule wrote:
| We had company stamps and sole proprietor's stamps in Russia
| too but they became optional 7 years ago. It was Soviet legacy
| and it's surprising that India still hasn't got rid of it.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Singapore still has company stamps.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I guess it is a legacy of (inherited?) Chinese bureaucracy.
| Hong Kong has it too.
| unmole wrote:
| India got rid of it in 2015.
| [deleted]
| Seanambers wrote:
| In India they optimize for maximum employment. It's the only
| place I've seen 7 people needed to refill a soda vending
| machine.
|
| Once I ordered some drinks brought up to my hotel room around
| 10 in the evening. It took forever - turned out the guy who
| made the drinks was sent home for the day. So the hotel called
| him back and had him return just so he could come and make the
| drinks and bring them to my room. Because that was his job -
| nobody elses.
|
| This was at a five star hotel in Amritsar.
|
| Our driver slept in the car outside the hotel and was on call
| 24/7 for our entire stay.
|
| Quite different from western countries for sure.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Weird question: Did you feel embarassed when you learned
| driver was sleeping in the car? I would be. You: Sleeping in
| a 5 star. Them: In an uncomfortable car seat. When I traveled
| to Seam Reap, Cambodia, I was constantly embarassed when my
| driver did not come to eat with me. It was a weird,
| unpleasant peasant-ruler divide that I did not enjoy.
| mradek wrote:
| Honestly this kind of stuff is why I don't travel to such
| places. Im sure they're beautiful and whatever but I'd
| rather go spend time in an advanced country like Japan. The
| constant guilt tripping is not fun.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Unfortunately, in rich countries, the peasant-ruler divide
| is just abstracted away and out of sight, often
| internationally.
| CPUstring wrote:
| I'm not sure that is maximizing employment as much as it is
| taking advantage of labor that is too cheap to meter.
| signal11 wrote:
| > Everything requires an application, even when everything can
| be done digitally.
|
| Please also provide two self attested photocopies.
|
| (It's interesting to think about why attestation is required.)
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Now they ask for "official Aadhar". Even though its a digital
| document and Aadhar website explicitly states that every copy
| of Aadhar is an "official" copy.
|
| If you get a color print and get it laminated, your
| unofficial Aadhar suddenly becomes "official".
|
| I've had so many arguments with officials about this its
| unreal.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| Huh, is that a thing people ask for? I've had to explain
| the
|
| > its a digital document and Aadhar website explicitly
| states that every copy of Aadhar is an "official" copy
|
| part multiple times to people in my family, but had assumed
| this would be basic knowledge to government officials.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Worth noting that a vast majority of these rules were created
| by the British and have been carried over as it is post
| independence and till this day. Quite a lot of them have become
| irrelevant but no one's bothered to purge them.
| 1024core wrote:
| > India's obsession with paperwork is unceasing and baffling.
| Everything requires an application, even when everything can be
| done digitally. You need letters and stamps to get anything
| done.
|
| I remember once my wife and I wanted to travel by train to a
| tourist town. After buying the tickets, we realized we had made
| a mistake (actually, _they_ had made a mistake). So we decided
| to cancel our tickets and just buy new ones.
|
| We had to fill in an application, attach photos of ourselves,
| as well as our copies of our passports ... all to cancel a
| ticket! Boggles the mind.
|
| It feels like a Kabuki theater, set up to keep the people busy
| and employed.
| eunos wrote:
| >Why? I have no idea!
|
| Legacy of British civil service and bureaucracy ?
| automatic6131 wrote:
| "No, you don't understand, we have to operate like this
| seventy plus years after the end of British rule - not
| because we are incapable or we aren't agents - no no but
| because the British set up this system, and who are we to
| change it?"
|
| See also, "no you don't understand, we had to start a war
| with the Muslims in the West because the British didn't tell
| them to be our second class citizens fast enough"
| usrusr wrote:
| A bureaucratic system selects for people who are good at
| that kind of process. Unsurprisingly, they aren't too eager
| to change the environment they thrive in.
| eunos wrote:
| Indian civil service do have stronger gravitas compared to
| other civil service. Looking from Indian Civil Services
| Examination, it really attracts huge amount of talents and
| required preparations.
| Alkim wrote:
| ...and an effectively unlimited labour supply
| srmarm wrote:
| I remember dropping my bag at a luggage store at the big train
| station in Mumbai. Bags needed to be scanned before being
| stored, not uncommon. Except the scanner was on the other side
| of the station.
|
| So I was sent off and queued up to get my bag scanned and more
| importantly get my receipt stamped to say it'd been scanned
| walked back through the crowds where I could have done anything
| with the bag - to the luggage drop where the attendant checked
| that I had the correct stamps to say it had been checked! No
| seals on the bag, nothing to stop me giving them a different
| bag, just the essential stamp on a bit of paper!
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Malls are the worst when it comes to security theater. Most
| will check your car's boot for illicit materials when you
| park. But they won't check the car's interios - you could
| have anything inside!
|
| You'll usually be frisked at the mall entrance. Women will
| only get frisked by a female security guard. If the female
| security guard is absent (pretty common), any female visitor
| can just walk through without getting frisked.
| [deleted]
| Tryk wrote:
| Do you mean shopping malls?
| trendroid wrote:
| Not op but yes they meant that.
| markdown wrote:
| Wait, everyone gets frisked at Indian malls?
|
| Was certainly not my experience 20 years ago.
| vinaypai wrote:
| You're right it wasn't true back then. I don't live in
| India anymore, but I believe a lot of security measures
| (and security theater) were implemented after the 2008
| terrorist attacks in Mumbai:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| Not in South India, in any of the cities I've been to.
| There was a brief period (possibly after the 2008 attacks
| that the others mention) when that was the case, but that
| didn't last long.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| At least happens here in Delhi. I can't remember if it
| happened before the 26th November 2008 Mumbai terror
| attacks, but that might have been the instigating factor.
| [deleted]
| raverbashing wrote:
| Ah yes, it's the "yessir" bureaucracy, the "magical piece of
| paper" bureaucracy. Designed to keep privileges and maybe as
| a job program
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| Countries with high paperwork and bureaucratic burden are
| famous for also being highly corrupt. This is probably not a
| coincidence. Likely all the excess paperwork makes it easier to
| hide what's really going on, easy to provide roadblocks for
| those who don't pay, and easier to generally hide bad activity
| in a sea of noise.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I would replace "countries" with "systems". You can see this
| in the US with government contracting or health billing. Tons
| of paperwork but totally opaque and prone to corruption.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| This has nothing to do with physical paperwork (See Japan
| which runs on paper forms even today; most hospitals in US
| are paperless but they're far from efficient), but the
| underlying policies that dictate the requirements and how the
| approval process must be conducted, number of
| parties/agencies/teams involved and the incentives put in
| place to make sure it gets done within a certain timeframe
| (QA controls). Some governments are better than others.
|
| Paperwork really isn't to blame here because even if
| everything was digital, the people behind the operation and
| the policies that govern their behavior is still the same.
| The problem isn't the interface between citizens and the
| government, it is the backend source code of the government.
|
| You are all barking at the wrong tree.
| wincy wrote:
| During the pandemic I paid for a concierge care doctor and
| man it was the most convenient experience I've ever had
| with a medical provider. Cut out the insurance, he had a
| nurse and one office assistant and virtually no paperwork.
| Guy actually had brain power leftover to know who I was and
| what my situation was. I feel really bad for anyone wanting
| to become a doctor in this day and age, it seems absolutely
| grueling. I don't know why anyone would go through all that
| trouble.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Wow, please share more details. What city and what was
| the total cost compared to other options? I have heard
| this exists in very rich places in New York City, but it
| costs a pretty penny!
| silasdavis wrote:
| Paperwork and bureaucracy conducted face-to-face is
| completely different in its capacity for bribery, cronyism,
| and discriminatory behaviour outside of the official
| system.
|
| Automated systems can be quite awful (original research:
| Spain) but neither paper or digital systems would
| officially state the human factors involved in turning them
| over. There's simply less opportunity for these human
| factors in more automated digital systems.
| usrusr wrote:
| Particularly if you consider the on-ramp to corruption:
| being a little more lenient and helpful to those who are
| more polite than others blends into being a little more
| lenient and helpful to those who you consider "on your
| team" blends into blends into being a little more lenient
| and helpful to those who give favors in return blends
| into being a little more lenient and helpful to those who
| offer cash. Only then the artificial roadblocks begin.
| Fully developed corruption would likely find ways to
| continue after digitalization, but the ramp to get there
| would be so much less inviting.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I wouldn't consider Germany and Switzerland that corrupt.
| jwr wrote:
| Ahem. We're talking about a country where a chancellor that
| pushed for building a gas pipeline from a foreign country
| went straight to the board of the foreign company running
| that pipeline after ending his term as chancellor.
|
| Corruption is everywhere, it's just on different levels.
| Usually in more "developed" (I don't like that word)
| countries you see corruption on the highest levels, and
| people actually get away with it.
| Shaanie wrote:
| The way you word it makes it sound like "the corruption
| in developing countries is low-level, whereas in
| developed countries it's high-level". In reality, the
| corruption in developing countries is on _all_ levels,
| whereas it 's mostly only happening at a higher level in
| developing countries.
| AlmostAnyone wrote:
| I wouldn't say so. To get the appropriate doctor to check
| my brother's broken arm and shoulder sooner than in more
| than a month (he needed surgery within 3 weeks max to
| avoid permanent damage) we had to employ personal
| contacts and gifts. I live in EU and this happened this
| summer.
| ekianjo wrote:
| in The US recently a commissioner at The FDA got offered
| a high exec position at Pfizer. Nobody says anything
| about that...
| PubliusMI wrote:
| There's literally an entire political party dedicated to
| ridiculing Democratic nonsense during the pandemic.
| otikik wrote:
| Which party is that? The Republicans?
| comte7092 wrote:
| Gottleib was the FDA commissioner under the Trump
| administration, though.
|
| This isn't about a particular political party.
|
| Even the much hated fauci was a career bureaucrat under
| numerous administrations, of both parties.
| foverzar wrote:
| > We're talking about a country where a chancellor that
| pushed for building a gas pipeline from a foreign country
| went straight to the board of the foreign company running
| that pipeline after ending his term as chancellor.
|
| Yeah, and long after that they decided to build a second
| pipeline (Nord Stream 2).
|
| And before that, they've been received the same gas from
| the same foreign company over the ex-SU Ukrainian
| pipelines.
|
| And five years later we will likely see Turkish pipelines
| (still bearing Russian gas) prolonged to Hungary, from
| where it will reach Germany once again.
|
| And that foreign company isn't even running those Nord
| Stream pipelines - they were largely German, due to
| legislations requiring separation of the pipeline
| operator and the supplier.
|
| Don't underestimate how much Germany had profited from
| all the cheap gas and infrastructure investments from the
| said foreign country, up until they managed to loose it
| all just for the sake of political appearance and no real
| substantial win.
|
| I wonder if we would some day see Scholz in some American
| LNG company for which the nation now has to pay order of
| magnitude more, than it ever paid to Russia.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It is another league, not like back home in Portugal,
| where everyone does everyone little "favours", you cannot
| even get into some hospitals without a little help.
| martopix wrote:
| I have dealt with bureaucracy in Italy and in Switzerland
| and if you think Switzerland has bad bureaucracy, you have
| _no idea what you 're talking about_.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Just google Franz Josef Strauss for some history on German
| corruption. Followed by a quick search on how exactly the
| government sourced face masks during COVID (same political
| part basically).
|
| For Switzerland, well, a quick search for money laundering
| gives you all the information you need.
|
| EDIT: Both the FIFA and the IOCI, probably the most corrupt
| organizations on earth, are having their seats in
| Switzerland.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Your two orgs are not part of the Swiss gov't. Nor is the
| United Nations. On the whole Swiss society, business, and
| its gov't has very low corruption.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I checked his Wiki page:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Strauss
|
| I cannot find the word "corruption" anywhere. What am I
| missing?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Weapons deals with saudi arabia, the Starfighter, the
| Spiegel affaire (more an abuse of power than corruption),
| none of this is mentioned?
|
| Edit: Both, the Spiegel affaire and the Lockheed
| _bribery_ scandal are mentioned.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yeah but that isn't like back home in Portugal, where
| everyone does everyone little "favours", you cannot even
| get into some hospitals without a little help.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| At least for Germany... we're not _overtly_ corrupt: you
| don 't need to bribe policemen to get out of fake charges
| or traffic stops, you don't need to bribe city officials
| for building permits.
|
| But at the large scale, we are absolutely a corrupt nation:
| our former Chancellor Schroder sold us out to Russia, there
| have been dozens of millions euros worth of (shockingly
| ruled legal) corruption during the pandemic, the large
| companies ("Deutschland AG") have an extremely cozy
| relationship with almost all parties in Germany, not to
| mention corporate donations and sponsorship of party
| gatherings (except far-right AfD whom no one serious wants
| to donate money to and far-left Linke who refuse to take
| corporate donations out of principle).
| hef19898 wrote:
| True, for building permits, either fast or out of the
| usual and other edge cases, you don't need to bribe
| people, you need to know the people in charge _very_
| well.
|
| EDIT: Nobody wants to donate overtly to the AfD, that's
| why they had already multiple investigations into their
| finances and donations. A large part of which came from
| Switzerland. They do have those donation scandals in
| common with the CDU and CSU, those received anonymous
| donations in cash in briefcases. And Schauble, who ended
| up as Finance Minister in the federal government later,
| got away with, I kid you not, "I do not remember _that_
| briefcase containing 100,000 bucks " (emphasize from me).
| So, it seems all parties in Germany are corrupt, some
| more than others, with the exact degree of corruption
| directly proportional to the time in actual power.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Another classic is regulatory capture.
|
| Oh that new building code or electrical code just so
| happens to only be fulfilled by using the latest
| (patented) product by company X?
|
| Well it's the state of the art, we can't build below that
| standard anymore.
| LurkerAtTheGate wrote:
| Or union labor. I needed some electrical work on a new
| house, but there's no electricians available for months.
| Hanging out with a contractor friend, I mentioned that
| the state law says "the homeowner OR a licensed
| electrician", and he reacted like doing it myself meant
| wiring the house with dead orphans or something. I've
| done electrical work, I just make more money in software
| so I'm not licensed, but that is somehow even worse
| because I'm depriving the union electricians of work. So
| now its a secret I take to my grave apparently.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| You wrote: <<the large companies ... have an extremely
| cozy relationship with almost all parties in Germany>>
|
| This is true in most highly industrialised countries. Can
| you name any where this is not true? I don't know any.
|
| Another way to think about it: What is the polar
| opposite? "the large companies ... extremely unhealthy /
| combative relationship with almost all [political]
| parties". That sounds like the bad old days in 1980s
| India. Most economies would be a wreck if that were true.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Oh, corruption still exist, but most people are too poor to
| play in that league. Compare that to "developing country
| corruption", where you can often ... ahem ... prematurely
| show your gratitude towards an official for as little as 20
| bucks.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Sure, but it is another league, not like back home in
| Portugal, where everyone does everyone little "favours",
| you cannot even get into some hospitals without a little
| help.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| How many times are you going to copy-pasta this exact
| same comment? Quick search shows three times. Keep it up.
| Great work.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I care for the lazy readers that don't bother to read all
| comments, as means to find out why I made the top
| comment.
|
| Congratulations you aren't one of them.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Switzerland is far less bureaucratic than Germany.
| soco wrote:
| There was a saying "if I look at myself I hate myself, if
| I compare myself I love myself"
| pjmlp wrote:
| Only if has improved in the last 20 years since I lived
| in Geneva.
| pjc50 wrote:
| They aren't, but there's definitely some present at the
| top. With enough money on the table, how could it be
| otherwise? Others have mentioned gas, but there's also
| BaFin/Wirecard:
| https://newrepublic.com/article/162084/weird-extremely-
| germa...
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| In the finance industry, BaFin is widely regarded as slow
| moving, out-of-date, and incompetant. Note that I did not
| use the term corrupt. Do you really think some BaFin
| staffers got bribes from Wirecard not to investigate? I
| doubt it.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Almost forgot about _that_ one... I wonder how they are
| going to contain the fallout from this to some low level
| BaFin employees and Wirecard 's leadership. because it
| will be contained, nobody went to jail for things like
| the 2006 FIFA World Cup for example, or the various
| defense contracts in the last decade, or...
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| How do explain doing business in Japan and Korea? They are
| famous for stamps, applications, and exceedingly complex
| rules and regulations. Yet, there are relatively low
| corruption. I heard Germany and Austria are also very heavy
| on paperwork and bureaucracy. They essentially have zero
| obvious corruption.
|
| Corruption is a weird thing. Why do some countries have more
| of it than others -- holding GDP per capita constant? I
| cannot explain it. Look at the United States -- "googols" of
| money spent to influence lawmakers. It cannot be healthy and
| looks like legalised bribery in comparison to other highly
| developed democracies.
| slim wrote:
| the corruption business is very similar to racket. the threat
| being making you lose indefinite amount of time (instead of
| violence). as a business you have deadlines and not meeting
| them would make you lose money. sometimes losing money can be
| deadly to the company, that's why people unwillingly
| participate in corruption.
|
| the business model of corruption is : 1- slow the process as
| much as you can 2- some people will have deadlines and will
| be willing to pay to meet them 3- profit
|
| the slowness is there on purpose, to be able to provide quick
| process as a paid service
| megablast wrote:
| Is Japan the exception?
| ekianjo wrote:
| Corruption at the government level is rampant in Japan
| sn41 wrote:
| From my experience with both countries, surprisingly, Japan
| is more paperwork oriented than India. For some reason,
| they really want things in hard-copy, too.
|
| The difference, and it's a major one, is that paperwork
| does not slow the pace of work in Japan. Once papers are
| there, progress is usually instantaneous.
| Vibgyor5 wrote:
| Not really - Germany is equally infamous for its obsession
| with paperwork and bureaucracy (unlike India, Germany still
| used fax)
| resonious wrote:
| To my knowledge, Japan's Yakuza used to be highly involved
| with the government. That's basically just a rumor though.
| I don't have any details. The rumor also says that this is
| no longer really the case anymore.
| [deleted]
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I cannot answer about the original rumor, but I can say
| in the last ten years there has been a dramatic
| (economic) fall for the Yakuza. Slowly, the Japan gov't
| has passed tighter and tighter domestic money laundering
| laws -- taxes, building / business permits, banking, etc.
| Many times I have been asked to sign a form stating no
| connection with "anti-social forces". The Japan gov't is
| putting the economic equivalent of the "sleeper hold" on
| Yakuza. You hardly see them now (in visibly obvious
| forms) except the dodgiest places. I never see anyone
| with a missing half their pinky finger. (Yes, it is real
| / weird / scary.)
| [deleted]
| phonon wrote:
| Japan being a notable exception.
| mrkstu wrote:
| No, it's there. Look at the scandal around the
| assassination of Abe and the Unification Church. The church
| has had the main party of Japan bought and paid for for
| decades.
| somat wrote:
| The paperwork is an attempt(usually misguided) to stop the
| corruption. The idea is that if you have to account and
| document all actions you will have act in the proscribed
| manner and not in a way that benefits you.
|
| This usually fails for the reason you posted. I am not really
| sure how you are supposed to stop corruption once it gets
| rooted in your society. It is a vile and subversive menace
| that turns every one into a criminal, preying on their fellow
| man. A very unpleasant environment to live in.
|
| The best article on corruption I have seen.(if you have time
| for an hour long power point presentation )
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4
| mmsimanga wrote:
| It feels similar to the sometimes unintended consequence of
| having more legislation only serving to entrench the
| incumbents by making it hard for new players to enter. In a
| couple of African countries I am familiar with it is the
| same story. An endless series of papers and stamps and
| signatures that are supposed to stop corruption but really
| just serve as an opportunity to be corrupt. I am so
| paranoid now of not having the right paper I tend to store
| all papers issued by a government official.
| loudmax wrote:
| Perun has been making some of the best videos on Youtube
| since the start of the Ukraine invasion. Mostly on how
| military procurement works. It sounds like a dull topic,
| but when you start to understand the intricacies and the
| stakes involves it becomes fascinating. Absolutely
| recommend this channel.
| gotorazor wrote:
| @loudmax wasn't totally clear, but I understood what he
| was pointing to: Perun made a video about how corruption
| can destroy military procurement. And, possibly, why the
| Russians are doing so poorly in Ukraine. It was a
| terrific powerpoint slide video.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Prescribed, not proscribed
| bergkvist wrote:
| It is funny because it is the exact opposite of what you
| should do if you want to stop corruption.
|
| Deregulation is the best cure for corruption, because it
| makes the gatekeepers obsolete. There would be no reason to
| bribe them because you don't need their approval in the
| first place.
| roenxi wrote:
| > I am not really sure how you are supposed to stop
| corruption once it gets rooted in your society.
|
| Well, assuming that all people are roughly the same as each
| other, the answer would be to adopt traditions and systems
| from countries that aren't corrupt. Attempt the sisyphean
| task of convincing people that giving power to the middle
| class is going to lead to a better future.
|
| As your comment reveals, the instinct when confronted with
| corruption is ... centralise power and try to force it to
| be used for good. That doesn't work, so try to convince
| people to decentralise power. Political and bureaucratic
| elites are regularly revealed to be corrupt, so stop making
| them the bottleneck for handing out the "allowed to run a
| business!" stamp. Centralising power just gives corrupt
| people a target to aim for and increases the blast radius
| when they worm their way in to a position.
|
| How you convince people to do the sensible thing and
| decentralise power is beyond me though. The instinct to
| push power to a single leader is remarkably strong in
| humans.
| narrator wrote:
| I am a fan of the Singapore anti-corruption method of
| paying bureaucrats a lot of money. That way they don't
| have to have corruption side hustles and you can attract
| good talent to these positions. Somehow this is more
| unpopular than widespread political corruption.
| dash2 wrote:
| This is the very famous in economics theory of Becker and
| Stigler. The high pay isn't so that they don't need side
| hustles, it is to make the (small) chance of being
| discovered and losing their job painful. You pay much
| above market wages, people will not risk losing their
| job.
|
| Is it true? Well, maybe. From Van Rijckeghem and Weder
| (2001):
|
| > ... we find evidence of a statistically and
| economically significant relationship between relative
| wages and corruption.... While economically significant,
| the relationship, nevertheless, implies that a large
| increase in wages is required to eradicate corruption
| solely by raising wages... The relationship between wages
| and corruption is not found in regressions with country-
| fixed effects which points to ineffectual wage policy in
| the short run...
|
| I haven't found much better evidence than that, though
| there is Di Tella & Schargrodsky (2004) with a detailed
| study on a hospital.
| Lio wrote:
| I'd be sceptical given just how greedy corrupt
| bureaucrats can be.
|
| There's not much to stop a crook being both officially
| well paid and totally corrupt.
| drran wrote:
| Yes, but the position will be taken by a honest guy
| already.
| Lio wrote:
| Ah, you have a good heart to give them the benefit of the
| doubt but remember these aphorisms:
|
| _A fish rots from the head down._
|
| and
|
| _Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely._
|
| and
|
| _Nothing disinfects better than sun light._
|
| IMHO they all apply when dealing with public servants in
| unchecked positions of power.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Why?
| narrator wrote:
| According to transparency international, Singapore is one
| of the least corrupt countries on earth. If a politician
| could make several million dollars a year just from his
| job, you could attract major corporation CEO caliber
| people. Otherwise, why would a highly talented person
| want to deal with untangling that mess?
| ano88888 wrote:
| incredibly naive answer from someone who probably haven't
| lived in a corrupt country and deal with the process on a
| daily basis.
| leidenfrost wrote:
| But the parent comment is right.
|
| The knee jerk reaction against corruption is to
| centralize power: "X institutions are corrupt, we will
| give more power to this candidate who demonstrated to be
| a good person, so he will vanish those institutions and
| saves us fron corruption".
|
| That's what Bolsonaro did in Brazil. In his campaign, he
| demonstrated to be a good christian and a person of
| faith. In Brazil, people strongly associate that with
| being a good person.
|
| Guess what happened after.
| miroljub wrote:
| > That's what Bolsonaro did in Brazil. In his campaign,
| he demonstrated to be a good christian and a person of
| faith. In Brazil, people strongly associate that with
| being a good person.
|
| Wasn't Bolsonaro elected because the previous president
| and his main opponent (Lula?) was so corrupt that he even
| landed in jail, which is a rare event for a prominent
| politician?
|
| > Guess what happened after.
|
| Care to explain to non Brazilians?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| In a nutshell, he decided that streamlining things by
| eliminating courts and elections would help him achieve
| his vision.
| nine_k wrote:
| Ah, a good king! The ever-popular fairy-tale character.
| jkestner wrote:
| I don't know if Lula committed corruption, but he
| apparently wasn't more corrupt than the judge who tried
| him, who became Bolsonaro's Minister of Justice. All the
| charges were dismissed eventually because of court bias.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luiz_Inacio_Lula_da_Silva
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Lula was condemned in 3 different courts. Not unanimously
| because the higher court judges disagreed about
| increasing his sentence by a small amount or a lrge
| amount.
|
| Al the cases were dismissed because a new law was passed
| that created a new court and said every case like Lula's
| should be judged only on that new court.
| miroljub wrote:
| Thanks for the info. I don't follow Brazilian politics,
| but somehow the picture of a corrupt ex-president going
| to jail persisted in my head, since that was the news we
| were getting here back in the time.
|
| I couldn't understand why our news in Germany was
| pretending that a guy convinced of corruption would be a
| saviour of Brazil against the evil Bolsonaro.
|
| That highlights one of the main problems in our
| societies. We just accept information served to us by our
| governments without much checking. Either because we
| don't care about every topic, or because we don't have a
| means to actually check.
| leidenfrost wrote:
| When the baseline of corruption is high enough and those
| who judge you are equally or more corrupt, convictions
| for "corruption" are a weapon from those who do not want
| a specific someone on the government rather than real
| intention of reducing corruption.
|
| Simplifying, it's like this: If the road to presidency is
| corrupt, you either become also corrupt (on a varying
| degree) or stay as one of those parties with no more than
| 1% of the votes. But then, there's a pact of silence
| between cronies. And those who are accused of corruption
| are the ones that either went too far or went against
| powerful people in the government.
|
| I take all those trials with a grain of salt.
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| This reminds me of why I hate when government agencies
| excuse an overly broad rule by saying they "won't
| prioritize enforcement" against favored/minor actors. Eg
| [1].
|
| [1] https://www.axios.com/2022/09/13/us-treasury-
| department-torn...
| cubancigar11 wrote:
| This is a popular misconception. Paperwork is basically
| created as part of job being done by the government
| employee. This employee is hired due to connections and the
| paperwork created to justify the job. The pointlessness
| makes people exert the tiniest amount of power they have,
| like reddit mods. The monetary corruption is more related
| to salary which is related to well being of economy.
|
| For example, during British Raj almost any British who
| could, got a job to move these papers in India. India
| inherited that machinery and hasn't moved to economical
| right yet. The current government is trying but you can
| read how it is a bad government in western media since it
| came to power. The corruption in government allows foreign
| interference so of course.
|
| - unhappy Indian
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Raj era ICS was much smaller, Congress and Nehru created
| a lot of the bureaucracy
| cubancigar11 wrote:
| You are, I am sorry to say, mistaken. The Raj era was
| huge. There is very old article (https://www.theatlantic.
| com/magazine/archive/1908/10/the-new...).
|
| <blockquote>But the government is as complete a
| bureaucracy as that of Russia.</blockquote>
|
| The British Raj kept creating more and more bureaucracy
| paid for taxes exacted by causing famines, increasing in
| frequency and intensity. This system was inherited by
| Nehru and Congress. They were socialists so they
| increased bureaucracy but they didn't increase corruption
| - independent India has not seen a famine caused by taxes
| even in the direst of times.
| winter_blue wrote:
| Do you have any stuff I could read up on this?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The video talk about Russian military handing out Million
| dollar contracts to companies registered weeks before the
| tender.
|
| Well, guess what, the exact same thing happened in UK for
| PPE contracts:
|
| "Within weeks of the company's incorporation on 12 May
| 2020, PPE Medpro was awarded contracts worth PS203m to
| supply millions of masks and gowns."
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/07/michelle-
| mo...
| ricardobayes wrote:
| It's actually kind of disturbing how there are basically
| only a handful of countries on the planet without
| systematic corruption. Maybe there are none. Perhaps it's
| a human trait.
| otikik wrote:
| I would go as far as to say that a little bit of
| corruption is healthy. It adds flexibility.
|
| For example: you don't want to register your neighbor's
| daughter for taxes just so that she can babysit your
| child once or twice. That is crazytalk. And yes, a lot of
| countries make sure that small payments don't require
| registration or taxes. This was just a quick example to
| make the point, sometimes the general law is just not
| applicable to a local event and it is better that
| everyone ignores it.
|
| But this is like cholesterol. The right amount in your
| body makes everything better. Too much and you are in
| deep trouble.
| eastbound wrote:
| Well for small payments we need a simple tax box, no
| country is doing that, all countries require a ton of
| paperwork for each new "employee".
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The problem is that the revenue leakage for babysitters
| and other under the table services is lower than the
| scaled grifts that an "easy box" would generate.
| riskable wrote:
| Why not just have _one payment system to rule them all_
| run by the government that is required by law for all
| payment of employee-driven services? Businesses could
| save a TON of money on payroll systems and HR.
|
| A government-run system--presumably--would take care of
| withholding the correct amount of taxes and also making
| sure the business/person paying a salary never has to
| worry about running afoul of the law (having the IRS or
| equivalent) come after them.
| eastbound wrote:
| In France there are more than a hundred mandatory numbers
| on the paysheet. Each class of worker has its own
| retirement/health/subhealth/old-age-
| health/unemployment/family benefits. Each has a different
| rate.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| I realise that you are making an off the cuff example,
| and I agree with your basic point. However, in the places
| I have lived, the babysitter would be an independent
| contractor and thus responsible for her own taxes.
| Moreover, it is unlikely that she would be making enough
| money to exceed the personal exemption, and therefore, it
| is unlikely that she would owe taxes anyway. An argument
| could be made that she should collect and remit sales tax
| or VAT where applicable, but again, there are usually
| thresholds below which there is no obligation.
|
| My point is that well run, non-corrupt, systems tend to
| have exemptions to make everything sane and reasonable.
| If these exemptions don't exist, you can believe that it
| is because the system is corrupt and not because they are
| trying to stop corruption.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| > I would go as far as to say...
|
| In the UK, it wasn't corruption. These people were paid
| money for products, they delivered those products, the
| price paid wasn't excessive.
|
| The UK has an independent auditor that found no evidence
| of corruption, and that (where product was delivered
| incorrectly) it was due to problems with contract specs.
|
| Afaik, there is only one case where a person was directly
| involved in politics and was related to a vendor, they
| went to great lengths to hide their connection to a
| vendor, repeatedly lied to civil servants who questioned
| them, and is now being charged criminally (for some
| reason, the person who made the original comment about
| the UK chose not to mention it, it was PPE Medpro).
|
| The issue was that at the start of Covid, the govt called
| up all their suppliers asked for PPE, and they said they
| didn't have any. So the govt started using suppliers who
| often had other businesses that imported product from
| China (and had to set up new companies). The level of
| profit on the contract was normal, the price was higher
| but that was related to the pandemic (how quickly
| forgotten, in the UK there was literally no PPE for most
| of 2020, you couldn't buy masks at any price).
|
| So the flexibility already exists...the UK is not
| corrupt, things happen naturally. Corruption is only
| necessary where there are supply-side bottlenecks due to
| politics (i.e. Qatar, Russia, India).
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I think your argument boils down to don't assign to
| corruption what could more easily be assigned to
| incompetence.
|
| Which I think is a fair point but does raise some
| questions about the competency of the civil servants and
| politicians we trust with a fairly large chunk of our
| income.
| ectopod wrote:
| Private Eye has covered this. The level of profit was not
| normal. Some of the companies were making 50%. And the
| government had two lists of companies when they were
| awarding contracts. The priority list was for the
| acquaintances of ministers and MPs.
|
| It smells very bad.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Some types corruption are worse than others.
|
| With the typical Western "overpay for a modern
| tank/gun/piece of equipment by a factor of 2" style you
| still get a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment in the
| end.
|
| From what I heard, for example, in Russia you do that but
| then the quartermaster goes and sells half of your
| equipment off on the black market and the grunts sell off
| the other half and replace it with something much
| inferior.
|
| The first kind of corruption is bad and should be rooted
| out, but the second type is much more destructive as can
| be seen in Ukraine right now. Secrecy at all levels and
| for minor details, as well as "encouragement" from the
| highest levels of politics for this kind of theft are
| core ingredients.
| FredPret wrote:
| 100%, I'm originally from a really corrupt country. They
| steal the money, and then still refuse to do the work.
| Result: no money, nothing works.
|
| Here in the West, there is much less corruption to begin
| with, but the work gets done for the most part. Result:
| things work
| riskable wrote:
| > With the typical Western "overpay for a modern
| tank/gun/piece of equipment by a factor of 2" style you
| still get a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment in the
| end.
|
| Many studies have been done and this isn't really a
| thing. The government isn't paying 2x (or 100-1000x as is
| often the rumor) for a given thing. What they're paying
| is _the price of certification and guarantees_. If the
| law requires that a procured item be guaranteed to NOT
| catch fire in an oxygen-rich environment (because it
| could be used in space) then the price of that product--
| no matter how seemingly mundane--is going to be more
| expensive than if you "just bought it from the store".
| Because someone had to setup a complicated bureaucracy
| and certification testing process to cover that product
| and actually carry out the testing.
|
| There's also product availability guarantees that add to
| the price of government-procured things: A lot of stuff
| the government buys _must_ continue to be manufactured
| for the effective life of the product _in the
| government_. This means that companies supplying _stuff_
| need to stock and _maintain_ replacement parts for
| lifespans that would normally be _vastly_ longer that a
| typical product cycle. They may even need to keep people
| trained at making and repairing these goods. That costs a
| lot of money!
|
| If you're looking for corruption in Western governments
| it's in the form of paying political campaigns (or entire
| parties) to get specific laws passed or _not_ passed.
| That 's the big one that causes basically _all_ the major
| problems in Western politics.
|
| To a lesser extent there's also corruption involving
| decision-making bureaucrats getting hired by the
| industries they regulated after their time in office is
| over (this should be illegal) and politicians with
| insider information trading stocks. Taking direct bribes
| also does happen but it's rare because it's too easy to
| get caught and the consequences are high (high risk, low
| reward most of the time).
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| If you look at the required operating range (temperature
| and humidity) for most mudane item sold to the US
| military... it is INSANE. Plus, the amount of "QA" done
| on the final product ensures very low failure rates. All
| of this costs a LOT of money. I see the same issue with
| nuclear power plants built in highly industrialised
| countries with strong environmental protection laws.
| MikePlacid wrote:
| > It's actually kind of disturbing how there are
| basically only a handful of countries on the planet
| without systematic corruption. Maybe there are none.
| Perhaps it's a human trait.
|
| More disturbing (to me) is how _easy_ it is to eliminate
| corruption in any given area - without any brutality or
| anything else extraordinary. Just setup the process
| correctly, incentivize workforce - and _the same_ people
| who were building roadblocks to milk money will switch to
| earning money by helping you get your task done.
|
| There was a "widely known in narrow circles" libertarian
| setup in Troitsk, Russia - of all places. The setup was
| related to the topic of the original post - registration
| of businesses. The post-Soviet business registration law
| was rather liberal. The amount of documents needed was
| not zero, but doable. But there was a catch - businesses
| should have been registered locally, and each locality
| was allowed to add their own requirements on top of
| federal ones.
|
| You can imagine what followed. Our own city, the I was a
| counsel member was: just prove to us ("us" in reality
| means -a clerk) that your business will be useful to the
| city - and we will register you. But there was a small
| city named Troitsk, home to some physics scientific
| institutions, which elected a libertarian mayor, Gennady
| Lebedev. The city council decided _not_ to ask for any
| additional documents and just register any business that
| complied with federal guidelines.
|
| But - any clerk has any good intention in his own hands,
| right? Mayor said: register everyone? but I am too busy,
| come tomorrow, and by the way go to... uhm police
| station, do a background check on yourself for me, I feel
| a sudden need to be extra cautious in your case. Why not?
| Seen it everywhere, like you've said.
|
| Here comes handy a proper construction of checks and
| balances:
|
| 1. Salary for registration office clerks was paid from a
| percentage of the (federally fixed) registration fee,
| nothing else, no safety cushion. If you delay an
| application- your salary will be delayed too. In the
| starving Russia that percentage created a - potentially -
| extremely well paying job.
|
| 2. The clerk will be fired if he asked - not just for any
| unnecessary documents, but just for asking any legally
| unnecessary _question_.
|
| 3. The clerk will be also fired if he accepts a
| registration that does not confirm to federal guidelines.
|
| So clerks have the incentive to work fast, help people
| correct their documents to comply with the federal law
| and the opportunity for any additional "milking" was too
| risky and simply not worth it. In short time - small
| Troitsk had more businesses registered than any other
| small city in Russia, and comparable to Moscow. Imagine a
| tax base they've got?
|
| First-hand account by Gennadi himself here (in Russian):
| http://www.sapov.ru/g_v_lebedev/texts/gvl1992_12_troitsk0
| 1.h...
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| >2. The clerk will be fired if he asked - not just for
| any unnecessary documents, but just for asking any
| legally unnecessary question.
|
| >3. The clerk will be also fired if he accepts a
| registration that does not confirm to federal guidelines.
|
| Fired by whom? Who is in charge of checking this? How do
| you ensure that the clerk isn't just accepting false
| businesses and giving a percentage to whoever's above? On
| its face this system doesn't seem to cure a culture of
| corruption to me
| bluGill wrote:
| you can audit a small number and know. sure the clerk can
| risk one, but statistically they are caught with enough.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| By "you" you mean a regular Russian citizen? Who is in
| charge of the clerks under this system, and what ensures
| that they aren't as corrupt as before?
| bluGill wrote:
| I mean the mayor. You can also hire independent auditors.
| As a person just keep electing mayors unrelated to the
| last and hope they expose each other.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I agree. Look at the map on this page. Plenty of orange
| and red!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Inde
| x
| MrJohz wrote:
| The podcast "The Rest Is Politics" did an interesting
| interview with the Prime Minister of Albania recently,
| where he made the argument that the best way to deal with
| corruption is to get rid of the paperwork altogether, and
| basically make government services so easy to access that
| corruption and bribery wasn't necessary in the first place.
| So he'd been putting a lot of work into digitising as much
| as possible, making corruption effectively much more
| difficult, but also much less necessary in the first place.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| This sort of thinking also prevents some kinds of scams.
| For instance there are web sites that masquerade as
| British government sites for paying road tax/vehicle tax
| and charge fees that the official site does not. Similar
| sites scam people out of money for making ESTA visa
| applications to visit the US
|
| In Norway this road fund fee is collected automatically
| by the insurance company. This is obviously easier for
| the user (zero paperwork), less work for the state, and
| prevents scam artists from duping people.
|
| And back on the subject of registering a company: in
| Norway this is done online and takes minutes.
| Ironlikebike wrote:
| Every new piece of paperwork that requires an additional
| face-to-face hand off or brings in a new entity provides
| another avenue for corruption to occur and a place for money
| to disappear.
|
| I've had employees (in Brazil) who don't ever claim
| reimbursement on personal expenses because if their paycheck
| varies too much their bank freezes their funds (in the name
| of preventing money laundering) and then the employee has to
| go to the bank and bribe someone to get the funds unfrozen.
| Just showing the cause for the variation in payroll doesn't
| cut it. As the employee puts it, every requirement to show up
| in front of an official for anything requires a bribe.
| [deleted]
| napier wrote:
| Absolutely. Also, in paperwork superpowers, oftentimes the
| only ways to get things done are by resorting to what global
| consensus evaluative norms view as corruption, and a
| significant form proportion of what goes on frankly is
| corruption of corruption of the parasitical criminal kind...
| but there's also a great deal of routing around dysfunctional
| nodes in the system with legitimate intent on all sides.
|
| Interpersonal networks and middlemen routers evolve over time
| into parallel tracks of shared understanding about how to
| achieve mundane process flows and solve problems when the
| official channels are broken.
| [deleted]
| jwr wrote:
| > the "company stamps" that are required for everything you do
| with your business
|
| We had that craze in Poland, but somehow managed to slowly
| crawl out of it over the last 20 years. It was a slow and
| painful process: even when the laws were changed not to require
| stamps, many places would ask for them and you would have to
| explain that your company stamp doesn't exist, so you can't
| place one on the form.
|
| It's one of those bureaucratic viruses of the mind. We're lucky
| to have gotten rid of it, but there are others! Examples are
| "fill your forms with a BLUE pen" (supposedly because it looks
| less "photocopied"?), "sign legibly" (I never know if I'm
| supposed to use my signature or sign my name), "your national
| ID card number" (it's idiotic to ask for one, as it changes if
| you lose your ID and get a new one). There was also a period
| where every company would photocopy your ID (for example when
| signing up for a cellular plan), until the government stepped
| in and declared it illegal.
|
| Bureaucracy is like barnacles on a ship: you have to constantly
| fight the growth.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| We had waived off the requirements for stamps and signs when
| filing annual compliance documents during the pandemic.
| Everything worked just as well.
|
| Now they've brought them back again.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| > "sign legibly" (I never know if I'm supposed to use my
| signature or sign my name)
|
| I suppose they mean to say "don't make a squiggly line
| (parafka) and call it a signature".
| ryandrake wrote:
| Reminds me of a surreal example[1] of Indian bureaucracy from
| Jim Rogers' _Adventure Capitalist_ : Rogers
| and his wife had left India's State of Manipur and were safely
| across the border in Myanmar. But wait, here comes an Indian
| official running after them, who says that they can't leave,
| because, they didn't have permission to be in Manipur. "He was
| telling us -- I am not making this up -- that we had to return
| to Manipur, because we were not allowed to be in Manipur, and
| thus we could not leave it," Rogers relates. The debate lasted
| for two hours before, "someone made a phone call and took the
| subinspector off the hook, and we were free to proceed."
|
| 1: https://mises.org/library/book-review-adventure-capitalist
| hef19898 wrote:
| India is the only place I ever travelled to, that controlled
| visas upon _leaving_ the country. Like what, you are at the
| airport, behind security, with a ticket back to Germany in
| hand, with a German passport, and _now_ they have doubts
| about the visas you got from the Indian consulate? What are
| they going to do, hold you up and send you back on a flight
| paid for by the Indian government or what? Really crazy.
|
| Overall, kind of logic so, because how can you _leave_ a
| place you didn 't _enter_ in the first place because you had
| no _permit_ to enter it? Mind blowing!
| overstay wrote:
| This is not that unusual. It happens to me every time I
| forget to hand over my Dutch residence permit with my (non-
| EU) passport when leaving the Schengen zone from Schiphol.
| The border guards are absolutely meticulous about flipping
| through the passport looking at the entry and exit dates in
| the hopes of catching a potential overstayer. They're
| almost always super disappointed when I realize what's
| happening and hand over the card.
|
| The threat isn't "we're going to keep you here because you
| weren't allowed to be here," it's "we see you have
| overstayed your visa and now we're going to make sure you
| catch your flight out and ban you from ever coming back."
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| dude. unless you are doing some space age shit or something,
| you don't need to set up a company in india to do business.
| sure the whole "limited liability" and that but in reality that
| is just a smokescreen.
|
| just use your personal pan card to open a bank account, get a
| GST registration, do income tax audit and you will be done. No
| compliance, no nothing.
|
| i do taxes and books for businesses with 250+ Crore turnover
| and they are all sole proprietorships. Why? the simple answer
| is why bother? you can have all the employees,all the corporate
| hierarchy and still be a proprietorship...
|
| One part of the problem is all the professionals milking
| companies for "compliance management fees" but in the end of
| the day, my suggestion to businesses is unless you REALLY
| REALLY need a company, please don't bother
| napier wrote:
| You need limited liability at larger scale and an official
| entity to get low interest loans, support and above the
| counter investor funding. These systems need new company
| centred reform and redesign to remove friction causing
| elements like OP describes to enable Indian entrepreneurship
| to realise its untapped potential in India as well as
| overseas. The amount of bureaucracy left behind by the
| British and the layer upon layer of mindless inefficiency
| added since is stifling innovation, adaptation and growth
| like nothing else.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| What makes me pessimistic is the place bureaucrats still
| occupy in the social hierarchy. Even today, getting a
| government job carries tremendous prestige, especially
| outside urban areas. Becoming an IAS/IPS officer is the
| most prestigious thing you can do as an individual.
|
| Bureaucracy will remain obdurate as long as members of the
| bureaucracy are feted by society. Ideally, bureaucrats
| should be invisible. But in India, IAS/IPS officers make
| headlines regularly.
|
| I won't get even started about the sheer amount of man
| hours wasted in preparing for administrative exams.
| Statistically, less than 0.1% of the people preparing for
| IAS exams will actually be selected. The remaining 99.9%
| waste YEARS of their lives in this futile endeavor instead
| of actually building and learning.
|
| I remain bearish on India as long as the bureaucracy
| remains paramount.
| unmole wrote:
| > Becoming an IAS/IPS officer is the most prestigious
| thing you can do as an individual.
|
| If you are in UP and Bihar. That's not true for the rest
| of the country.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| True in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh as well (have lived
| there for years).
|
| Between these four states alone, we're talking about 40%
| of the country's population.
|
| If more than half of your country believes something, it
| can be said to be the majority opinion.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| You wrote: <<Between these four states alone, we're
| talking about 40% of the country's population.>>
|
| Google Sensei tells me: UP: 204.2M
| Bihar: 99.02M Rajasthan: 68.89M Madhya
| Pradesh: 73.34M
|
| Not even close to 40%. Population of India is about 1.3B
| to 1.4B.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Those numbers are way too old. Even by the 2011 census,
| UP was nearly 200M with a decadal growth rate of 20% in
| the previous decade. Bihar was 104M with a 25% growth
| rate.
|
| Even with more muted growth, current population would be
| 230M+ for UP and 125M+ for Bihar.
| llampx wrote:
| Is that because of their geographical proximity to New
| Delhi, the capital?
| unmole wrote:
| No, it's because these states have fewer options.
| roguesherlock wrote:
| isn't the tax burden for sole proprietorship higher than for
| say limited company? 30 vs 25 iirc?
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| you can claim as many expenses as you like, in companies
| there are restrictions, there are deferred tax assets and
| liabilities because of companies act and income tax act
| depreciation difference. There is MAT applicable sooner
| than sole proprietorship i think.
|
| lets just say it is easier to "appropriate" the books as a
| sole proprietorship.
|
| you have to pay mca fees for your authorized capital, one
| off but if you are doing serious business, it costs.
|
| i know, 5% "might" sound a lot in taxes but by fudging some
| numbers, by not paying complaince fees, by not being on the
| hook for a "lot of compliance" and the penalties that come
| up, it does not sound worth the risk....
|
| Look, if you are doing big business, want to raise money
| from the public, sure go ahead but not otherwise.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > but by fudging some numbers
|
| And this is the corruption mentality right there.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you don 't need to set up a company in india to do
| business_
|
| You do if you want outside investment. Or if you want
| professional management. Or if you want to seriously engage
| in international business.
|
| What you say is true: most businesses are sole
| proprietorships. But that's a significant and manufactured
| barrier to growth.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Unfortunately you need to incorporate if you want to raise
| venture funding. You'll also struggle to get taken seriously
| by good tech talent if you try to hire them as a
| proprietorship.
| _448 wrote:
| Depends. The comment you replied to has a point. I have a
| family business. From personal experience this is how it
| works in practice for most entrepreneurs.
|
| As for funding and business strategy, it will get bit
| tricky because you will now have to think of different ways
| of financing instead of VCs. But it is nothing different
| than VC financing (and you get to keep 100% of your
| company).
| testemailfordg2 wrote:
| Not sure if political parties in India provide assistance in
| these cases, in return for electoral funding via completely legal
| and annonymous electoral bonds. This would be similar to lobbying
| in the west. But the question is for how much, they would be
| willing to help.
| 100069912261242 wrote:
| Chiter
| dopidopHN wrote:
| as someone else said, it looks like rezoning and that might be
| hard in many other place. For instance in France, you could be
| per-empted until late in the process by the SAFER, the entities
| managing agricultural land. They might buy it from the vendor at
| market price when you try to buy the land, and sell it for
| another price they see fit to a farmer of their choice.
|
| Not as frustrating as what OP described. Still. Simple
| Administrative formality can fuck up your plan badly.
|
| CF a fine piece of self reflection on our own adminstration. ( I
| love our admin, it's a fine piece of Napoleonic technology. But.
| yah. ) https://youtu.be/JtEkUmYecnk?t=34
| egorfine wrote:
| Just like in my country, Ukraine.
|
| However during the last years Ukraine is getting rid of
| corruption at an escape velocity and hopefully at that speed we
| will be able to be done with it within ten years or so.
| triceratops wrote:
| I'm pretty sure corruption in societies is a cultural thing.
| It'll take at least a generation, maybe more, to truly go away.
| Ten years is wildly optimistic.
| aivisol wrote:
| I like your optimism... I am writing from a country which
| joined EU few decades ago and hoped to rid the corruption as
| well. Now here we are: I have applied for permission to connect
| a house to a water line in a small town - that was in early
| June: and it still drags on. Despite all fancy online
| application and project tracking tools the government has
| built, the number of involved institutions is insane. And its a
| bloody water pipe some 50m long at most... Cannot imagine
| something larger...
| orwin wrote:
| Ukraine was really on a roll pre-war, regarding corruption,
| at least low-level.
|
| I had a friend who worked at Kyiv since 2014, first as a
| nightclub owner, then as a security contractor
| salesman/manager, and he told me that low-level corruption
| there was divided by two overnight (during Covid).
|
| I don't know what happened, but i guess it is easier to pass
| harsher or society-changing laws during a pandemic.
| nikanj wrote:
| There's an image in Ukraine (and the EU) that Russians are
| corrupted. Saying no to corruption is a form of saying "I'm
| different from Russians"
| throwaway738585 wrote:
| I guess he meant the shift from government office offline
| visits to full digitalization. At the moment a lot of
| common operations and documents (e.g. register the company)
| in Ukraine can be done exclusively using the Internet, and
| if you try to visit a government office they will send you
| back to fill the forms via the website.
| egorfine wrote:
| Well, we had two successful revolutions in the 21st century,
| so no government here would want to fuck with people. Reforms
| continue.
| asdff wrote:
| This could happen in Marin county too. Can't build a house
| next to these other houses because there is no water or sewer
| hookup, and catch22, can't hook up water and sewer because
| some nesting owls in the area, which are apparently wholly
| unaffected by all the existing development but would surely
| be wiped out should you build another 40'x40' building in the
| area.
| jacknews wrote:
| This seems like nothing to do with 'starting a business', but
| simply obtaining planning permission for changing land use.
|
| This is a notoriously difficult process in any developed nation,
| and is often even impossible, because the state has decided that
| a particular area should be dedicated to agriculture (the nation
| has to feed itself, etc).
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I liked this article... but... it's agricultural land. You can't
| buy agricultural land unless you are a farmer and you can't build
| non-ag buildings on ag land. This is a national food security
| issue. This is common in many countries.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| I am not sure about a manufacturing company, but I could start a
| "firm", in a matter of 1 week, to conduct business. Granted mine
| is a software development one and I created the business
| primarily for tax purposes.
|
| Looks like the author wants to use land demarcated for
| agricultural use to build a factory.
|
| That is a whole new story. In many cities, there are industrial
| development centers and you can buy land there and build a
| manufacturing facility easily.(The very fact that the govt.
| sold/leased you land in that zone means a lot of environmental
| and industrial clearances are de-facto fulfilled)
| zac23or wrote:
| In Brazil we have a saying: The government makes it difficult to
| sell facilities.
| AntiRemoteWork wrote:
| Do not engage in any relationships with people from the "Global
| South" and Slavs. Simple rule for easy life.
| 1024core wrote:
| I would highly recommend this book by Hernando DeSoto, The
| Mystery of Capital.
|
| GBooks link:
| https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Mystery_of_Capital/...
| chronicsonic wrote:
| Formula 1 was racing there but pulled out due to tax issues that
| could not be resolved.
|
| https://edtimes.in/why-was-formula-1-racing-forced-out-of-in...
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Yes, you need to obtain "permission" before you build any
| manufacturing structure on your own land with your own money.
|
| Are there any countries where this isn't true? Where you can just
| build whatever you want on your own land with your own money?
| instagraham wrote:
| India's claims to remove red tape since this government took over
| can best be summarised as "three red tapes in a trenchcoat"
| twawaaay wrote:
| You are doing it wrong. What they really wanted from you was a
| bribe, not a stack of papers.
|
| Nobody will ever openly admit they want a bribe. They will just
| drown you in bureaucracy until you get the idea.
| jefftk wrote:
| My read is that the OP understands this but is ideologically
| opposed to paying bribes. Ex: "Obviously, they are playing
| 'hard to get' to get me to pay some bribe and initiate the
| process" and "So the Gram Panchayat NOC is stuck because of non
| payment of bribe".
| twawaaay wrote:
| You have a choice. Try to do business in India and pay bribes
| or move your business elsewhere.
|
| There are countries of which India is one of them where you
| can't do any serious business without paying bribes. Serious
| business is anything where a government official even
| suspects you may have money to pay the bribe. So maybe not a
| hairdresser, but if you have money to buy a piece of land you
| are expected to have money to pay bribes.
|
| There is a lot of examples of large companies that came to
| the same conclusion. For example, Ikea tried to do business
| in Russia without paying bribes and gave up. They also
| decided they will not be supporting corruption but they
| failed, faced the choice to pay bribes or get out and decided
| to get out.
|
| India is corrupt to the bone. Corruption is way of life. It
| is a reason for people to get government jobs which otherwise
| do not pay enough.
|
| If government jobs do not pay enough and people self select
| themselves to get these jobs anyway only because they plan on
| getting bribes to supplement their salary, how prevalent
| corruption would be?
|
| This actually is the reason why fighting corruption is so
| hard. Because people self select themselves and displace
| those who do not accept corruption from those jobs. Then
| these officials advance and take up high level jobs and
| pretty soon you have entire structure corrupt to the bone at
| every level.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> You have a choice. Try to do business in India and pay
| bribes or move your business elsewhere._
|
| This post and the OP's decisions seem to me to be part of
| an attempt to decrease corruption in India.
| twawaaay wrote:
| IMO it is just wasted effort. I applaud the person for
| trying to do right but unfortunately it will not achieve
| anything. For corruption to decrease you need government
| that is actively working to this end. Except Indian
| government is corrupt, too.
|
| It isn't even going to prove any point or make the
| problem any more public. Because Indians are extremely
| well aware of the problem and they all know a lot of
| these stories from their own life.
|
| Regular people will never get rid of corruption exactly
| because of the effect I mentioned -- because people self
| select themselves into government jobs. A government
| position is way more lucrative to a person that plans on
| being corrupt than to a person that plans to only live
| from the official salary.
|
| It is like trying to explain to extremists (say
| Republican extremists, or nazi, or communist, etc.) why
| what they are doing is bad. You can reach individuals and
| even convince them to your point but then those
| individuals leave their extremist circles leaving those
| circles exactly as extremist as they were before.
| jefftk wrote:
| Maybe, but many people in India's government do want it
| to be a place people come to do business, and publicly
| embarrassing them with how hard it is to make progress
| without bribes seems plausibly helpful.
| moralestapia wrote:
| "Oh, that's nice then" ... nope.
| conductr wrote:
| > Obviously, they are playing "hard to get" to get me to pay some
| bribe and initiate the process. But after going through all this,
| I am not going to pay any bribe to anyone.
|
| Given "bribe" was mentioned 39 times in the article.. Good luck!
| gw99 wrote:
| Amazing you can apparently start a scam call centre with less
| administrative effort ...
| interdrift wrote:
| What a pain man. Reminds me of setting up the visa for my spouse
| in Bulgaria (she's from Canada). The amount of mental pain I've
| experienced with administration should be illegal. This seems
| much worse and I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.
| sam_goody wrote:
| I do not understand the authors issue with paying bribes. You
| want your factory, you are willing to pay lots of money for it,
| and the system works with bribes.
|
| Fine, so be it. Pay the bribes and get to work.
|
| I once lived in such a country*. The unfairness is built in, but
| if you have the money, you can get whatever you need relatively
| quickly.
|
| If you are trying to save money, fine. But you are willing to go
| to court, which is even more expensive. And all that time wasted
| you could have been earning revenue. So instead, pay the bribes,
| start the company, get workers and build clout, and have the
| power to make change!
|
| * Said country has made huge strides to combat this and become
| legit in the past 30 years, and that has made everyone more
| wealthy - even those employees that can no longer collect bribes.
| sooyoo wrote:
| > Fine, so be it. Pay the bribes and get to work
|
| Since most people think like that, things don't change and
| everybody is miserable. Cudos to the author for not accepting
| this rampant corruption.
|
| > If you are trying to save money, fine
|
| If that's really what you think the authors motivation is then
| you may have missed the point of the article.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| The author doesn't get his permit stamped and obviously
| currently has no influence. He'll probably give up, and now
| the jobs he would have created and imports that would have
| become local production won't happen. It's not an obvious
| good vs bad situation here, a corrupt system that allows
| bribes is gross, but pretending you can just act like you are
| in a western country with rule of law is ignoring reality.
| sooyoo wrote:
| You got it upside down. Exactly _because_ too many people
| think like that, this whole corrupt system works. Imagine
| the whole country refusing to pay bribes. They would
| disappear tomorrow.
|
| This whole "but this single action won't change anything "
| attitude may feel rational, and even be (selfishly)
| rational, but the effect comes through the aggregate. Lots
| of people in society behaving like that, and you get
| emergent properties caused by the aggregate of those
| individual choices. A dangerous (and pretty selfish) path
| to go in societies.
| asdff wrote:
| At the end of the day you are only playing a game that
| someone else has made. It can be corrupt, terrible,
| whatever, but the fact is you can do nothing to stop it,
| so if you want to get anything done you need to play the
| game. Your little petty protest does not stop the game
| from being played, the people who made the game as it is
| just don't care about your opinions at all.
| plaguepilled wrote:
| >"I do not understand the authors issue with paying bribes."
| Because... Its extremely unethical and facilitates corruption?
| sam_goody wrote:
| OK, accepted.
|
| Like everything in life, there is always a trade off.
|
| We have a see-saw. One side has indignation, encouraging
| corruption at the level of one bribe, cost. The other side
| has time, factory, jobs, and possibly more influence to
| change the system.
|
| And from my experience, the people getting the bribe don't
| see it as unethical - it may even be their "salary". (Eg.
| Counselors don't get paid in many summer camps, they just get
| tips. Parents views the tips as extortion. Is it unethical to
| tip? No, but the whole system is corrupt and should be
| changed. /rant)
|
| Assuming that system is built this way (so the risk of paying
| the bribe is nominal), and you have the resources to pay it,
| it is the cost of doing business. It is unfortunate, but I do
| not understand why the cost is not worth it.
| plaguepilled wrote:
| This is an unfounded dichotomy. The implication that you
| cannot have an industrious society without a level of
| corruption is not supported by your argument (nor any I
| have heard of).
|
| Equitable working conditions make working more appealing to
| a worker - and this is extended to the "fairness" of your
| workplace. Tips are not "the cost of doing business", they
| are similarly an expectation passed down from authority to
| the workers to extract their wages opportunistically.
| People being accustomed to it does not mean that the issue
| is resolved, because it still leaves the financial risk in
| the hands of the worker should the business' profitability
| shift. And so bribes are similarly unethical.
|
| Moving on from the issue of bribes to the bribe receiver,
| they are also very obviously an imposition to the giver.
| Not further, they make the "true cost" of a transaction
| less clear to varying degrees, allowing a services cost to
| vary very highly compared to what the public might think it
| is.
|
| There is no good argument for a bribe.
| antonvs wrote:
| > The implication that you cannot have an industrious
| society without a level of corruption is not supported by
| your argument (nor any I have heard of).
|
| I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here, but
| corruption does exist everywhere. It's just a question of
| how pervasive it is, how much it's actually enshrined in
| law, etc. (E.g. campaign finance laws in the US
| essentially legalize corruption, which could perhaps be
| argued to be like decriminalizing drugs in order to
| better control them, although whether that's the actual
| intent is debatable.)
|
| The Corruption Perception Index and the Global Corruption
| Index might help get a sense of this. As is typical with
| such lists, the top performers (last corrupt) tend to be
| countries with smaller populations. With bigger
| populations, the risk and incidence of corruption
| increases.
|
| https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021 https://risk-
| indexes.com/global-corruption-index/
| mijamo wrote:
| Paying bride is a criminal offense. Paying bride abroad is also
| a domestic criminal offense. I do not think encouraging
| criminal behavior is a great idea, especially when it is also
| unequivocally morally wrong.
| bulbosaur123 wrote:
| > Paying bride is a criminal offense.
|
| Cringe.
| Varriount wrote:
| Regarding the country you formerly lived in, what efforts would
| you say were most effective?
| sam_goody wrote:
| A minister of finance that took upon himself to break all the
| (huge) monopolies [the country had one phone company, one bus
| company, one electric provider, etc. These were broken apart
| one at a time.], to reform the corruption, etc.
|
| He made plenty of enemies along the way, but somehow managed
| to keep on punching. And it truly is much better for
| everyone.
| dottedmag wrote:
| India Penal code, Section 171E.
|
| Up to 1 year in prison. Do you wish to be exposed to this?
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Sometimes people just stand up for what is right and expect
| officials to do their job?
| rish1_2 wrote:
| The right answer to most of this corruption is to create a system
| of check and balances with complete blinded information exchange
| between each check point so no one decision body is influenced by
| another. This is impossible to create because of vested interests
| and likely never happen.
| rish1_2 wrote:
| America is closest to this but is not blinded so corruption
| still exists.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| Here's some interesting things that I believe are universally
| true in India:
|
| 1) People succeed here inspite of the government, not cause of
| it.*
|
| 2) Indians can be successful anywhere except India.
|
| *Unless you are rich enough to bend the laws to your needs.
| kwere wrote:
| and still it seems a lot of india fetishes socialism/commando
| economy USSR style. why?
| dartharva wrote:
| It's easier to move the masses with promises of freebies and
| subsidies than with better economics that are difficult to
| explain.
| triceratops wrote:
| Is there any reason to believe it would be less corrupt with
| a different economic system? At least now there's plenty of
| subsidies for the poor.
| [deleted]
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