BBC NEWS | Business | What might hold back India?

BBC NEWS | Business | What might hold back India?

They queue for hours to push through the necessary paperwork to open a business in India.

Many of them will have to come back repeatedly, if the countless forms they have been given by the comfortable officials in air conditioned offices have not been properly filled out. But it is a necessary evil.

You cannot open a business in Mumbai without getting the right papers stamped, marked and approved at this office.

"It's crazy," says one businessman, wary about revealing his identity in print.

"We have to stand here in the sweltering heat, back and forth with these papers, and there are only certain hours in the day when you can come here to get your work done. The office closes at 3.30 in the afternoon."

Many of the small business owners cheer us on while we film.

They want us to show the inefficiency of the administrative officials who handle their paperwork.

"Go on, show the world how long we have to wait to open up a business here," someone shouts from the snaking long queue.

"Tell them it is not India's businesses that are slow, it is India's bureacracy."