How do I start a laundry or laundromat business?

In India a laundry is usually a wash-and-iron or dry-cleaning service with pickup and delivery rather than a self-service laundromat, and it is licence-light: a municipal trade licence, Shops and Establishment registration, a verified and stamped weighing scale if you bill by the kilo, and GST once turnover passes Rs 20 lakh. Washing, cleaning and dyeing stayed at 18% GST under GST 2.0, so price with that in. The heavier rules arrive with machinery: any steam boiler above 25 litres must be registered under the Boilers Act 2025, a mechanised laundry with an oil-fired boiler falls in the Orange category for pollution consent, and a borewell-fed plant at scale may need a groundwater NOC. Start in one locality with a fixed pickup schedule and a few anchor customers such as hostels, salons or small hotels, and use PMEGP or Mudra to fund machines once demand is proven. What kills most laundries is idle machines and pickup costs eating the margin.