These silly questions remembering me about License Raj era

Today, I was totally bemused by one news article. Let me produce the relevant portions of said article here,

"Old furniture collected from Indian consumers in exchange for new ones will not be re-sold in the market, Swedish retail major IKEA has informed the government."

You may be thinking, what's the big deal here? Well, there was an interesting line further down in the report,

"The IKEA's clarification was on a government's query on the nature and intent of activities involving collection or purchase of old furnitures.”

This line forced me to search, what was government’s question? Unfortunately, I am yet to figure that out. In such a situation we can only guess what the question was – well let’s do it.

IKEA is not selling any nuclear energy equipment or missile parts. It’s in furniture business. So, does it matters to government, whether IKEA is going to sell old furnitures collected from Indian consumers or not? Isn’t it a pure commercial decision? Isn't it as simple as asking Big Bazaar shops, where you will set up rice shop - in the second floor or third floor? Isn’t it pure micro-managing?

What forced central government to ask such a question? Are we still living in License Raj era?

Sajeev.

References:

1. No resale of old collected furniture, IKEA assures govt - Business Standard, Indian Express