Recently, a company called Wintrack shut down all import-export operations in India after exposing customs bribery and facing relentless harassment. Its story reveals a deeper truth — while the outward manifestation of this phenomenon is that of corruption, the cause is the immense amount of discretion that our laws, rules and procedures provide to the bureaucracy at different levels. This is one of India’s foundational obstacles that kills every policy, every scheme, every reform. Until we fix the “too much discretion” problem with specific legal changes and institutional reforms, India will keep losing businesses, talent, and its chance at high-tech leadership.

Take the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which was supposed to be India’s big tax reform. In Haryana, a GST inspector was caugh

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