‘Salt Commissioner’s office can send you a notice…’: Rant on red tape overdrive explains why India is losing to China, Vietnam
Despite a push for “Make in India” and the promise of a global manufacturing shift away from China, many Indian entrepreneurs are finding that their biggest challenge isn’t foreign competition—it’s navigating India’s bureaucratic maze.
A post on X on Sunday has struck a chord across India’s startup and MSME ecosystem, offering a biting, satirical list of 25 reasons why it’s so hard to run a factory in India. From absurd paperwork requirements to arbitrary government interventions, the thread has reignited the debate over India’s ease of doing business—especially compared to Asian manufacturing giants like China and Vietnam.
“If you are a brave Indian who decides to start an MSME or a manufacturing company or a factory,” the post begins, “A Municipal clerk / officer can reject your land registration file because of a missing annexure on the 16th page of the 17th form.”
It only gets more exasperating from there. “Your GST application could be marked for physical verification despite digital Aadhaar verification, because your Insta photo and Aadhaar card photo, doesn’t match.” In another instance, “The Salt Commissioner’s office can send you a notice for misuse of salt pan land, despite your land being 600 kms from the nearest sea.”
The post is not just a rant—it’s a reflection of why many Indian manufacturers struggle to survive. Entrepreneurs spend more time battling red tape than competing on product, cost, or quality. “That’s why most aspiring entrepreneurs quit and go back home wondering if they should have simply stuck to a normal salaried job.”
In contrast, China and Vietnam have built robust ecosystems for manufacturers, streamlining permissions, offering incentives, and enabling rapid scale. Indian entrepreneurs, by contrast, face power connection delays, environmental notices for trees that don’t exist, and penalty threats for misplaced commas.
Even the most determined struggle to keep going: “Few of the great souls who persevere, they spend most of their time and energy fighting the Indian govt machinery on compliance. Not China / Vietnam on cost and quality.”
Until India addresses these systemic issues on the ground—not just on paper—it risks losing out on the global manufacturing pivot that could have been its defining economic opportunity.
