The former financial director of Infosys, Mohandas Pai, has sounded the alarm about what he describes as ‘harassment’ facing small exhibitors in India. This is in line with the recent comments of the Minister of Commerce of the Union, Piyush Goyal, about the country’s start ecosystem, which caused a massive debate on social networks and evoked strong reactions of many entrepreneurs.
Reacting to a Reddit post detailing the bureaucratic maze that small businesses must navigate to export goods, PAI criticized the Bank of the Reserve of India (RBI), the Central Board of Indirect and Customs Taxes (CBIC) and other regulatory bodies for making painful.
Sharing the publication in X, Pai wrote: “Minister @piyushgoyal PL Eche a look. How can small exporters survive with such documentation from @CBIC and @RBI This harassment is too much when we have exploded @dpiitgoi @dpiitgoi @dpiitgoi?
Minister @Piyushgoyal Pl take a look. How can small exporters survive with such documentation from @cbic and @RBI This harassment is too much. When will EodB have? @Dpiitgoi @RBI RBI simply does not care about citizens. They are a law in themselves without responsibility … https://t.co/tixiaf9faq
– Mohandas Pai (@tvmohandaspai) April 18, 2025
He labeled institutions and key figures, including Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, and the Ministry of Finance, questioning the effectiveness of the “ease of doing business” of India.
Also read: ‘Dukan de Piyush Goyal
‘The ease of doing business is just talking’
Pai’s frustration votes from a Reddit publication entitled “Why you should not try to export from India Vent & Rant” by a user called Clean-Question-4778, who shared his exhausting struggle of four lengths with the export ecosystem of the Indies.
“Everything about ease of doing business is just talking and not walking. It is better to move to Dubai and export from there than from India.”
This is how the businessman summed up his experience. A businessman from a small town that once prosecuted 300-400 national orders daily, his problems begged in 2022 when he tried to take advantage of the international market.
What followed was a series of complex or redundant steps: acquire an import exporter code (IEC), register in Icegate, request an authorized concessionaire code (AD) and use only “licensed” emails for shipping.
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“Without meaning for an export of 30 dollars,” he wrote, referring to disproportionate compliance costs.
Things got worse when one of its clients rejected a shipment, and the Indian government charged GST twice: once for the original shipment, and again for the return.
“We had to pay GST twice in a shipment in which we didn’t win a penny,” he said.
By 2024, he found deeper problems due to what he described as the lack of integration between customs, GST and RBI platforms. He discovered that shipping documents worth 50 Lakh remained “open” in the system. To close each shipping bill, he was asked to pay RS 400, for a total of RS 8 Lakh, about 16 percent of his turnover.
His breach of the deadline led his account to be marked not formed by the RBI, freezing his ability to export.
Despite writing several emails, even attach diagrams to explain your situation to the Office of the Minister of Commerce, he said there was no response.
Voices of frustration become stronger among Internet users
Pai’s publication opened the Floodgatses so that others shared their stories of navigating the Indian desktop cracy.
A user commented: “There is no facility to do business in India! It is just a jargon! All ease is for the big corporate houses that have large pockets!”
Another wrote: “I have repeatedly said that Boe and Bol are a nightmare to settle, not due to lack of documentation, but incompetent banks and their systems.
Someone else pointed out how expensive it is even a small transaction: “One of the largest weak points for small businesses is Leghy’s documentation, even small external remittances. Remittances.
A fourth user shared a personal experience with corruption in the GST process: “even to obtain a simple GST record for an individual consultant (it is supposed to be an online authorization), they asked me to do bribes. As I did not, I kept” in the person “in the person” visit in FART, a visit to Istit Visit, visit the Wasity, I visited the Wasity.