Protests and complaints about the difficulties of doing business in India are growing louder.

These come not only from domestic businessmen, who have cut down significantly on their domestic investments, but from foreign businessmen who genuinely want to invest in India but are finding it increasingly difficult and time-consuming.

Just last week a foreign business group said it had in 2006 planned to invest $300 million in India but was able to spend only half that due to the lengthy process of getting permissions.

Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd (PERC) recently concluded in a report that the Indian bureaucracy is the worst in Asia. It had surveyed about 1,300 expatriate businessmen on various parameters, including government efficiency, political stability and regulatory stability, and India scored 9.21 where 10 is the worst.

Even the recent meeting of NRIs and PIOs in Jaipur had complained about the corruption, bribes, harassment and delays that act as disincentives in India.

Interestingly, former home secretary Gopal Pillai dismissed the PERC report in an article and said it deserved to be put in the dustbin. He may have a point about the bureaucracy being understaffed and overworked, but the government can only ignore all these grievances at it own peril and that of the economy.

Reputed businessmen have been appealing to the government for over a year to get its act together and start taking decisions on vital economic issues and reforms concerning core sectors like power, electricity, roads, ports and food. They were called by the PM and a new formula was floated of 30, 60 and 90 days whereby the business community would identify their grievances and within 90 days the problems would be on the path to resolution.

One does not know what has happened since, because the business community is still chafing. Last week, private power company chiefs, who met the PM on the shortage of coal and gas holding up thousands of megawatts, were given the same 30, 60, 90-day formula. None of these omnibus approaches can really work.

There have been saner suggestions, including one that says the only way that these complaints can be sorted out is for the government to take them up case by case. This way there would be accountability not only on the part of the government and the bureaucracy, but also on the part of business to deliver.