India has very cheap labor so you might save some costs on that front. However there are many deep-rooted infrastructure issues that need to be overcome:

Industries need un-innterupted power. There are massive power shortages already.

Mass production requires good road & rail connectivity - the state of roadways in India is pathetic

Freedom to hire (and fire) people - 1950s era socialist labor laws are abundant in India

Pervasive cancerous corruption at every conceivable level

While a laudable concept & initiative by the Modi govt. - first he needs to fix a few things in the country

I think you are misinterpreting what this website is about. It is part of an initiative, that aims to end license raj and simplify the process of doing business in India. What you have stated is not an unknown. The purpose of this initiative is to address exactly that & more. The recent meetings with Japan/China are focused on improving infra ($35/$20 Billion investments respectively).

To quote: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=109953

"The Government is committed to chart out a new path wherein business entities are extended red carpet welcome in a spirit of active cooperation. Invest India will act as the first reference point for guiding foreign investors on all aspects of regulatory and policy issues and to assist them in obtaining regulatory clearances. The Government is closely looking into all regulatory processes with a view to making them simple and reducing the burden of compliance on investors."

" The government is committed to improving the physical infrastructure. Development of dedicated freight corridors and investment in improving our ports and airports are underway. These corridors would house Industrial agglomerations along with smart cities. The private sector would be playing a significant role in these developmental works."

"first he needs to fix a few things in the country". No. that way you could never make progress. You promote WHILE improving/fixing things.

Correct me where i am wrong:

While cities and residential areas get a lot power cuts, the electric companies aim to provide industries with continuous power. Plus they are setting this up as a new industrial area so i suppose it is conceivable that they will have dedicated power production for this strip.

Again, this being built right on the highway, are high way conditions in india bad too?

Don't know why you are being downvoted. What you said is true. I would like to see how these things are being addressed in India on that website.

He is being downvoted probably because he didn't add anything to the conversation. Just paraphrasing the problem isn't enough.

It's not as hard to do business in India as it is in Brazil.

<edit> We do about US$800m/yr revenue there.

Was China any better when they headed in the same direction a few decades ago?

Summary about the new initiative:

- Act as reference point for guiding foreign investors on all aspects of regulatory and policy issues and to assist them in obtaining regulatory clearances

- simplify and reduce the burden of compliance on investors

- Transform the economy from the services-driven growth model to labour-intensive manufacturing-driven growth.

- Aims to attract foreign companies to set up factories in India and invest in the country's infrastructure.

- The new government has liberalised defense manufacturing and insurance sectors to attract FDI, but analysts say the government needs to do much more to attract foreign capital.

- Sectors like automobiles, chemicals, IT, pharmaceuticals, textiles, ports, aviation, leather, tourism and hospitality, wellness, railways among others will provide details of growth drivers, investment opportunities, sector specific FDI and other policies and related agencies.

Source : http://profit.ndtv.com/news/cheat-sheet/article-pm-modis-mak...

If it weren't for one of the comments here, I would have absolutely no idea what this is about. Really poorly designed. FAQ should be a list of questions.

I can guess but not entirely sure who this is from.

Right, I had the same problem. Don't know what the purpose of the site is. It's very opaque.

I cannot speak for other industries but India is pretty unfriendly for web startups. The Reserve Bank of India has the worst policies when it comes to IT companies.

1) In India, you cannot create recurring subscriptions as the RBI prohibits charging the credit card automatically. Not one Indian payment processor (I've talked to a many) gives you the option to create recurring subscriptions. Can you imagine where half the internet companies will be if you could not create recurring subscriptions?

2) Add to that, Paypal to Paypal transfer within India is prohibited by RBI. Why? Because certain people used to evade tax by purchasing goods directly with their Paypal balance. So, instead of catching the tax evaders the govt. of India found it easier to ban the whole thing.

That is incredibly annoying and true. Not sure if the current govt's focus includes web startups.

Usability issues aside (that FAQ is ridiculous), this site is a step in the right direction.

I've been looking for a way to be handloomed textiles for some time and this website helps find all the government agencies, but then each of their sites are hopelessly broken.

I've encountered bad links, broken pages, email bounce backs and a woeful lack of information. However if they upgrade those sites to the quality level of this one, then business in India really will be easier.

'Make in India' is a very ambitious project launched by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi to make India a manufacturing hub.

Pretty cryptic. The FAQ should list the FAQs (make some possible ones up and answer them if you haven't had people ask any :) ), not ask the user for a question.

I agree. There are lots of usability issues with the website. However this still one of the better websites compare to all the government websites.

My favourites are still http://work.sweden.se/ and https://www.gov.uk/, both of which are pretty usable seeming. :)

The FAQ question answers a ton of questions. Just search for a question you have and see what happens :)

I'm certain that few Internet users truly believe in site-specific search. This is no exception.

Question: What is the average time to incorporate? (also other variants, "...incorporate [a limited liability company | public limited company | private limited company])

Response: Large wall of text. After reading it, question is not answered.

The purpose of a FAQ is to quickly answer frequently answered questions. This search function works as a search function. It does not work as a FAQ.

Does look nice, though. I hope this doesn't come across as usual HN negativity. I would actually be interested in the answer.

Part of the benefit of an FAQ section is that you can find answers to questions you may not have even known you were interested in finding the answer to.

This web site makes no sense. Click click click click to find any relevant information. The FAQ is useless.

By clicking around, I got some interesting insights into FDI policy. Maybe the website just need to be re-organized to make the content more accessible.

Shouldn't it be "madeinindia.com?" Really messy website.

Its a campaign by the PM of India to encourage companies to 'make in India' and hence the website name. Of course we all know the label 'made in Xyz', but they probably chose the name based on the campaign name.

EDIT: But I agree that the website fails to clearly state its objectives and provide information to people on how to navigate the ubiquitous red tape.

No. The site is basically a red carpet for foreign businesses to manufacture their products in India. As in, "Come and make your products in India."

Website not friendly on mobile.. Works better on desktop..

I think the idea is to encourage people to make stuff in India, rather than a list of things already made in India... but yeah, it threw me off too.

I think the idea behind the design of the FAQ page would be for a visitor to browse through the website and then type in any question he/she encounters regarding the content or even matters peripheral to the content. Worked for me.

For those looking at the usability of the website, here's little context.It's not a great website. It's a change (in good direction) in the existing India government websites that use yesteryear technologies.

It's not about the website, it's about an initiative. Strangely, there's too much fixation on the website here, not the business model that would or wouldn't work.

I agree but you are posting on a forum which consists of web developers who do not care too much about Indian politics.

Saying HN is for web developers it too myopic. I feel it's about startups/hacking/business. Secondly, the article is less about Indian politics and more about removing politics from business. It's about streamlining manufacturing startups to India. If it works as planned, it could be quite relevant to HN.

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

Hm, so their cheap Mars mission was sort of local manufacturers promotion? Clever move.

Its coincidence for both the events. But surely Mars mission will help in promotion.

Dow Chemical gave a 5* review.

Yes. It's not mentioned in the website, but Indian Government also provides immunity from criminal prosecution to wealthy foreign investors with strong political connection - regardless of the nature and (genocidal) scale of the crime.

Step right in, investors. Find a get-out-of-jail-free card in your goodie bags!

Are you referring to this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

Yep. Estimates include upto 25,000 killed. Many of the surviving victims got only 25,000 inr (approx 500 usd) as compensation despite life-long injuries and birth defects to their children.

30 years on, victims are still fighting for justice and adequate compensation:- http://www.change.org/p/ananthkumar-bjp-revise-figures-of-de...

Poorly designed. It's an ugly site.

I agree

Madeinindia.com would have probably better