Tragic death of promoter of Coffee Day VG Siddhartha has raised serious question on economic reforms and ease of doing business. even before Sidharth more than 10 prominent businessmen and builders committed suicide in last two years of after demonetisation and Gst effect. many openly now questioning bank recovery and ED club with income tax actions.
Its high time govt must look in ease of doing business and entrepreneurs difficulties when banks are refusing one-time settlement and new loan for liquidity to recover losses.
I have dissed this with many bank officials and in privately they all feels that they are under pressure from higher-ups for recovery. it’s too early to pinpoint the exact causes that led to VG Siddhartha taking his own life. The letter written by the promoter of Coffee Day enterprises is confusing and raises a lot of questions. But there is one standout takeaway from the references to tax harassment and pressures from private equity investors: it is difficult being an entrepreneur in India.
On the ground, the reality is that, even a well-connected businessman from an old money family who is also the son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister S.M. Krishna and his family owns coffee estates for 130 years has a hard time doing business.
The episode shows that some relics of India’s socialist past are still well-entrenched despite it being close to 3 decades since the 1991 economic liberalisation. Profit is a bad word and the government and its bureaucrats still treat private business with suspicion. This is evident from numerous examples, the most striking of which is that small and medium enterprise businesses choose to stay small because of the heavy compliance burden and cumbersome paperwork.
Life doesn’t get easier when dealing with the taxman. Now, this is not to say that the income-tax department wasn’t right in the Coffee Day case; that’s beyond the remit of this piece. But the larger takeaway is that tax policies are decidedly unfriendly.
