Govt to cut business registration to 1 day from 27: report

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion will be the nodal inter-ministerial agency to enable the proposed changes

The Modi government is working on a series of proposals to enable businesses to be registered in a single day, down from the current 27-day wait, the Times of India reported Wednesday. 

 

The BJP-led government has reportedly already identified the bottlenecks in the system and is working on a single registration process for all labour laws, besides an overhaul of tax regimes, reduction of the number of licenses required, easing property registration, and quickening electricity connections. 

 

"To achieve all this, the government, along with the states, will need to carry out radical measures on a war footing," an official, who was not named, is quoted as saying. 

 

According to a recent Doing Business 2011 Report released by the International Finance Corporation, India had the dubious distinction of being one of the lowest ranked nations – 134 out of 189 nations – despite being the third largest economy in Asia. Worse, it ranked sixth among South Asian nations, with only Bhutan and Afghanistan behind it. It also got the last spot among BRICK countries, which includes Brazil, Russian, China and South Korea. 

 

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), which is part of the Commerce Ministry, will be the central coordinating agency for the proposed changes, and has set a 3-6 month deadline for implementation. The DIPP has reportedly asked the relevant ministries to work together to make the changes, while state governments are also being asked to join the initiative. 

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been calling for changes to the Indian regulatory environment to make the process of establishing businesses simpler, often touting the example of Gujarat, of which he was earlier chief minister, which has introduced single-window clearance for many sectors. 

 

He has also called upon global companies to come to India  to set up manufacturing units as part of his ‘Make in India’ campaign, and has promised to make the investment and business climate less arduous. 

 

The burdensome tax system is among the key focus areas for the suggested changes. In addition to reducing the number of levies, the changes also envisage online payment of taxes. Education and higher education cess, dividend and withholding taxes may be clubbed under a single corporation tax to simplify the process, officials are reported as saying. The Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) for developers of special economic zones (SEZs) and units in SEZs is proposed to be abolished, along with a move to quickly implement the Direct Tax Code and Goods and Service Tax (GST) that would establish a single tax regime across states. 

 

The proposed changes also recommend a uniform policy and procedure for all states to enable a single-window clearance system, along with a combined application form with an institutional process for various approvals.