The old Licence Raj is not a useful description of today's economy. But that does not mean permission costs disappeared. Modern reform programmes still measure transparency, approval speed, documentation requirements and service delivery because these frictions affect firms.
Better measure
Count time, uncertainty and repeated coordination, not only the number of approvals.
The next useful study should follow a small set of real business journeys from first application to operation, recording how many agencies, documents and unclear dependencies appear along the way.
Source
Limit
A reform framework proves that process quality is a policy concern. It does not, by itself, quantify the cost borne by a specific small firm.