Free Market India

Many years back, Euromoney group used to publish the "Doing Business" series. I had the pleasure of looking at "Doing Business in India's" first edition. It was a very well researched piece and therefore very useful for any foreign investor. But no sooner had I reached the second page of the volume, I realised that the blokes at Euromoney had no idea about doing business in India. Later, my doubts about the veracity of such resports were confirmed when I returned to Delhi with the purpose of making it my home.

You have to be here for sometime to understand how business is conducted in India and by business I mean small time and now big time retailing: Walmarts of the world please take note how Indian shopkeepers get their competitive edge:
1. Start a shop in the location of your choice do not bother about regulations, there are none. Rent if at all any will be dirt cheap because the owner of the building too follows your business practices and has few overhead costs
1a. Power is free, you just have to buy a wire to tap it
1b. Save floor space by asking staff to pee on roads, park in the adjoining galis and keep the dustbin outside the shop and litter the area all around it
1c. The nearest empty space is to cater to your future expansion plans so please do not hesitate to use it should u need it
2. Draw other likeminded shopkeepers to the locality: strength and legitimacy lies in numbers [after all we are a democracy]
3. After sufficient numbers have set up shop, the area becomes a shopping complex of a market or bazar. More shopekeepers and clients get drawn to it, you become a constituency and garner political support.
4. Mark up as much as you want, people have a lot of money these days
5. Of course, you would be staying in a posh locality no where near this market that u have helped create
6. of course you will send your children to good schools, hoping that they will become cleverer than you and manage the business better
7. Strength lies in numbers (all of you are voters and consituency), local law enforcers are dependent on you for various supplements: from free tea to free lacoste tees.
8. Once in a while an old fogey of a judge will say some unpleasant truths and by the power of his office create some trouble with you. Do not fear... you can use a lot of ruse to save your skin. here are some:
a) We are poor people and hence we are being tortured (Oh really? That Honda Accord parked outside your shop is not a customer's
b) This is a democracy and noone can stop our right to earn (Yeah! U have taken away my right to live in the neighbourhood)
c) How will we send our children to school (Think of what those chidren will think of you when they grow up and find out that you were a thief and had set up illegally)
e) Government has not made adequate number of shops for us (Brother, are u living in middle ages? your industrialist cousins are crying themselves hoarse asking the government to get out of everything except governance)
Judges are of course human beings too.... they will soften up and will leave most of you free to carry on your honourable task of screwing up more areas... Jai Bharat.