The “Sovereign” Roast: A Tale of Two Startups – #DhananjayRokde

We need to talk about the “Ease of Doing Business” in India—specifically, the “Ease of Watching Your Startup Age While Waiting for a Government Portal to Load.”

Exhibit A: The 80 IAC Tax Exemption Vortex. My application number is P061125227569. It has been languishing in the DPIIT digital abyss for over 6 months. In that time, I could have:

1. Built a functional AI that writes better policy than the current Nodal Officers.
2. Walked from Nagpur to Delhi to hand-deliver the documents (if the Nodal Officer ever picked up the phone).
3. Watched a Deloitte partner change their designation four times from “Leader” to “L99 Supreme Overlord.”

The DPIIT/MeitY Comedy of Errors: The Secretary of DPIIT, Shri Amardeep Singh Bhatia (IAS), and the Head of Startup India, Ms. Mamatha Venkatesh, often talk about “World-Class Standards.” I agree. The standard of their Grievance Portal is indeed world-class—if the goal is to create a digital “U-Turn” that leads nowhere.

Your portal doesn’t work. Your Nodal officers don’t answer. Your “transparent process” has the visibility of a lead-lined bunker.

Grandstanding vs. Reality: Ministers like Piyush Goyal and Ashwini Vaishnaw love celebrating “Unicorns” at mega-events. But behind the glitz, the “Black Hole” of CERT-In empanelment and Section 80 IAC takes 18 to 24 months.

The Punchline: Isn’t it “funny” how some startups, strangely close to certain Ministers or senior IAS officers, seem to skip the queue? They get their exemptions, obtain massive government contracts under DPIIT “exceptions,” and suddenly they are the posters for #MakeInIndia.

For the rest of us—the ones building Defence tech, Banking security, and Bharat’s infrastructure—we are told to “Netflix & Chill” while our 80 IAC application gathers digital dust.

My Appeal to the PMO Narendra Modi Nitin Gadkari Devendra Fadnavis ): Sir, your vision is being strangled by the very red tape you promised to cut. Personal ownership is needed. Taking a selfie with a founder is not a policy. Fixing a portal is.

To the Bureaucrats in the Ministry: Stop rebranding your titles and start answering your phones. A startup’s capital is its time. Every month you delay P061125227569, you aren’t “auditing” us—you’re sabotaging us.

#StartupIndia #EaseOfDoingBusiness #DPIIT #MeitY #RedTape #80IAC #DhananjayRokde #iManEdge #BharatTech #DigitalIndia

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The “Tag & Shame” List

1. Piyush Goyal Piyush Goyal – Minister of Commerce & Industry.
2. Ashwini Vaishnaw Ashwini Vaishnaw – Minister of Electronics & IT.
3. Amardeep Singh Bhatia Amardeep Singh Bhatia (Secretary, DPIIT).
4. Mamatha Venkatesh Mamatha Venkatesh (Head, Startup India).
5. Nirmala Sitharaman Nirmala Sitharaman – For the 80 IAC / Finance perspective.
6. Startup India #startupindia and MeitY MeitY Startup Hub MeitY- nasscom Center of Excellence National Informatics Centre, MeitY