It is not unusual for a country's bureaucrats and politicians to be less efficient than its businesspeople; and the Indian civil servant, with his forms in triplicate, has been a caricature for so long that it is easy to forget the impossibility of many of the jobs involved. But India's 10-million-strong civil service is the size of a small country, and its unreformed public sector is a huge barrier to two things a growing population needs. The first is a faster rate of sustainable growth: the government's debts and its infrastructure failings set a lower-than-necessary speed-limit for the economy. The second is to spread the fruits of a growing economy to India's poor. By the government's own admission, most development spending fails to reach its intended recipients. This is bound to stir up resentment--and risks causing a backlash against business.
Source: Economist, http://www.economist.com