As union minister Piyush Goyal criticises startups for lacking innovation, entrepreneurs tell BW Businessworld that starting a business in India remains tough due to red tape and systemic hurdles

“Your department sat on my application for over two years,” wrote the founder of a semiconductor startup on Reddit in an open letter to union minister Piyush Goyal, spotlighting the sluggish bureaucracy and red tape strangling India’s deep-tech ambitions. The founder claimed that after waiting two years for tax exemption approval under a government scheme, the application was returned with a fresh demand for “additional documents” and a note that the process would restart from scratch, effectively pushing the file back to the end of the queue…read more