Hacker News Reader

Comment by asdfasgasdgasdg | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting because you can see how theoretically any of these requirements would be a reasonable step before starting a manufacturing operations. I know in silicon valley for example many environmental problems were caused by insufficient oversight of manufacturing. However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as described in the article. I'm sorry to hear this is happening and I wish you good luck in challenging this process.

Maybe a default-yes approach would be more efficient. You should be required to post notice of your plans to these offices, then they have two months to raise any objections. If they do not, then you can go ahead. If they do, they're required to keep the process moving or you can sue to remove the road block.

View on HN

There's an economist who calls this "premature imitation". Basically India has adopted a lot of ideas that (arguably) make sense in more developed economies but that prevent India from developing to the point where those policies are actually beneficial.

It's hardly new; the colonial system was set up to prevent India industralising, but was so beneficial to those taking bribes that it was carried on even after independence. Known as the "license Raj".

> the colonial system was set up to prevent India industralising

Hardly. The colonial system started to evolve from approx 1600 [0] but industrialisation [1] didn't start in the UK until at least 150 later

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

Colonialism didn't seriously arrive in India until 1750, and it took until 1800-15 for the British East India Company to consolidate it's control over the subcontinent. Before 1750, the Company was a straightforward trading company, sharing trading rights with the Portuguese, French, and the traders of the Indian Ocean rim. After 1750, they were able to seize tax-collecting rights in Bengal, one of the most prosperous areas of the Mughal Empire. They used tax revenue on agriculture in the fertile Bengal delta to fund further trading and military activities around the subcontinent. Their policy was often mercantile. They forced wages down, drove exacting standards for manufacturing textiles, and engaged in monopsonistic policy.

So, I agree - an accurate statement would be to say "English involvement in India came out of the prevailing ideology of mercantilism, and it then grew into a colonial state". The colonial state did lead to India's deindustrialization - ex: the flourishing textile industries of the subcontinent were not allowed to modernize. But counterfactuals are hard. (I still think an area of the world at the forefront of textile production for thousands of years would not have gone gently into the good night without a fight.)

One of the most important things post independence was to ensure Indians had the capability to make things on their own. This meant achieving a high degree of domestic capability(Only Indians making things). There had to be a system to enable this happen. At times you have to slow growth to ensure you meet other capabilities.

It's not exactly a conspiracy.

Besides globalization itself is a relatively a new phenomenon and we did get started on that.

Also merely blaming these policies for slow growth is wrong. India has a range of socio-religious problems, which just can't go hand in hand with requirements for high growth economies, that is things like high quality public education, equality of access to opportunity, a degree of fairness in society and focus towards larger goals etc. India is just not there yet. Even domestic political goals are just something else.

Basically India is trying to make Biryani out of Idly batter.

"Premature Imitation and India’s Flailing State" - Shruti Rajagopalan and Alexander Tabarrok

https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_24_2_01_rajagopalan....

> "premature imitation"

When I worked at a young startup in Seattle we went through a stretch of hiring ex-Microsoft PMs who were great at solving all sorts of ten-years-old Microsoft-flavored problems.

I wish I knew this term then.

The problem here has nothing to do with unintended consequences.

These consequences are very much intended. The government adds these road blocks precisely so they can maximize the number of government workers who can milk money out of you.

Western developed countries have an order of magnitude more permissions that need to be approved. The difference is that the more sensible ones will consolidate all the requirements from all the different agencies and require you to make a single (or maybe a couple) submissions.

You will likely be required to submit more stuff, but those will be in subsequent problems in response to specific issues that come up.

They will also digitalize and centralize information so that things can be checked directly in the databases of the relevant government agency

Default-yes might not be necessary. If you really wanted to make the current process efficient, you would be able to. Image if the whole process was online, and not you were responsible for collecting the NOCs, but the government internally. Ideally, the government should contact you only for the info that they don't already have. The problem is the incentive to create such a system is low (because of how it trickles down from electoral process).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com