Dhiraj Nayyar:writes:   In India, Modi needs to clear away the sobwebs choking the legal and business sectors.  The real problem involves a raft of laws that lend themselves to exploitation, impeding business and government efficiency even today.

the government has now picked out 287 such measures, most of which are ludicrously outdated. One says that property in a certain part of Kolkata, one of India’s largest cities, can only be sold to the British East India Company. Another bans flying kites or balloons without police permission, because these constitute aircraft according to a 1934 law.

Such colonial-era rules may make for good comedy. But, of course, most of them are never enforced. The real problem involves a raft of laws that lend themselves to exploitation, impeding business and government efficiency even today.

Three prominent Indian think tanks — the Centre for Civil Society, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and the Vidhi Legal Centre — recently released a report called the Repeal 100 Laws Project that identifies several such regulations. The Indian Boilers Act of 1923, for instance, requires that government inspectors certify the fitness of steam boilers in Indian factories. Originally meant as a health-and-safety measure, the law has essentially become an instrument of extortion by bribe-taking inspectors.