Government of India in its efforts to improve the business climate of the country and also improve country’s ranking in the World Bank’s report on Ease of Doing Business; held a meeting yesterday under the chairmanship of the Union Finance Minister Shri. Arun Jaitley. The meeting was also attended by Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, Minister of Urban Development; Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law and Justice; Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Commerce & Industry; Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy and Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State (Finance).
Secretaries of various Departments of Central Government also participated in the meeting including DEA, DIPP, MCA, M/o Justice, M/o UD, M/o Civil Aviation, D/o Revenue, D/o Land Resources, CBEC Chairperson & Chief Secretary of NCT of Delhi and senior officials of Govt. of Maharashtra. Secretary, DIPP informed that Nodal Departments have been identified for each indicator who will lead the reform process ensuring the country’s improvement in ranking across the 10 indicators. Departments gave a brief overview of the reforms undertaken recently and agreed to implement the suggested reforms by January 2017.
It was further agreed that the Departments will hold intensive stakeholder consultation to get their feedback on the reforms undertaken and also engage with the respondents to ensure that the reforms are felt at the ground. In this regard, each Department shall review the progress every week for carrying out the necessary reforms.
The major decisions taken during the aforesaid meeting were:
- eBiz portal shall be mandated for starting a business that shall include three services of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Registration for PAN and TAN and also for EPFO & ESIC.
- Ministry of Corporate Affairs, CBDT, Ministry of Labour & Employment will work towards reducing the number of procedures for starting a business to 4 and the number of days to start a business also to 4.
- Shram Suvidha Portal shall be the only portal for filing returns, challan and making an online payment for EPFO & ESIC contributions as well as other filings and payments.
- Department of Revenue and Ministry of Shipping shall work towards increasing the number of direct delivery consignments to 40 percent by the end of this month. The Departments shall also ensure that the cost and time to export and import get reduced substantially to bring India within the top 50 ranks.
- Ministry of Corporate Affairs shall work with the concerned stakeholders so that the provisions recently enabled under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code are implemented through NCLT.
- To further improve the country’s rank in the indicator ‘Getting Credit’, Department of Financial Services and Ministry of Corporate Affairs shall work towards integrating the CERSAI database with ROC Registry of Charges to create a single registry of assets.
- In the indicator ‘Enforcing Contracts’, the Union Commerce and Industry Minister mentioned that the country ranks poorly at 172 on this indicator and efforts are required on many reforms to bring the country among the top 50 nations. She also mentioned that the initiative of eCourts should be expedited for electronic filing of complaints, summons, and payments, especially in the Commercial Courts.
- On ‘Construction Permit’, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development mentioned that the procedures shall be brought down to 8 which will be completed within 60 days. However, the Finance Minister desired that the Department should explore the possibility of commencing the construction on the architect’s certification and approval being granted only at the time of the occupancy of the building.
The next review of the progress made on reforms shall be done at the end of January to ensure their implementation within the timeframe agreed upon.
