Anand Sharma launches eBiz portal along with integrated payment gateway

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma announced the launch of the eBiz platform along with two DIPP services and an integrated payment gateway on Monday.

The eBiz project is one of the integrated mission mode projects under the National eGovernance Plan of the Government of India.

The project aims at transforming the business environment in the country by providing efficient, convenient, transparent and integrated electronic services to investors, industries and businesses in the areas of information on forms and procedures, licenses, permits, registrations, approvals, clearances, permissions, reporting, filing, payments and compliances throughout the life-cycle of an industry or business entity.

The eBiz portal, comprising information on forms and procedures, was earlier launched by Sharma at the CII Partnership Summit in Agra on January 28, 2013.

The second phase of the project, viz., the platform launch, is being carried out now.

This consists of two DIPP services, viz., Industrial Licenses and Industrial Entrepreneur's Memorandum (IEM) and the integrated payment gateway with the Central Bank of India.

This will allow the eBiz portal to showcase its transactional capabilities and will be a big step forward in demonstrating the functionality and value proposition of eBiz. With this, a business user can fill the eForms online/offline, upload the attachments, make payment online and submit the form for processing of the department.

He will be provided with copy of challan, which he can save or print, acknowledgement of submission and tracking of status of the form besides receiving sms alerts on important notifications.

The certificate/ approval/ clearance/ permit etc. can be finally downloaded from eBiz. The eBiz platform, thus, enables a transformational shift in the Governments' service delivery approach from being department-centric to customer-centric.

Speaking on the occasion, Sharma said, "We are firmly committed to wide-ranging initiatives aimed at fostering the business environment in the country in a holistic manner. Our approach includes leveraging technology to bring transparency, improve efficiency and promote convenience. eBiz is an important step in this direction and we are pleased to work in partnership with Infosys on this project, which we hope will become a benchmark for successful Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the country."

"The eBiz Project is the first of its kind ever implemented in the country. It marks the highest level of maturity in web-based e-Governance applications as it strives to achieve horizontal integration across various verticals of Central government, State governments and Para-statal agencies," he added.

"The integrated payment gateway, which is also the first of its kind in the country, essentially solves the problem of debiting from multiple sources and crediting to multiple sources in a completely automated manner based on a set of external messages. Such a gateway can serve as the universal gateway for all e-Governance applications. All that would be required would be an integration of the department or the service with the eBiz portal," Sharma said.

The eBiz platform is now in public domain and will allow the addition of more and more services across Central Government, State Government and Parastatal bodies.

eBiz- India's Government-to-Business (G2B) portal- was conceptualized with support from National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) as the consulting partner and developed by M/s. Infosys Ltd., Bangalore in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) Model for a period of 10 years.

The first three years of the term would be the pilot phase, while the remaining 7 years will be the expansion phase. During the pilot phase, a total of 50 (26 central + 24 state) services are being implemented across five pilot states viz., Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra and Tamilnadu.

This phase will also include the launch of a single window for the state of Andhra Pradesh.Further, over the course of the second and third years, five additional States, namely Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal will be brought under the ambit of this project.

It is envisaged that during the next ten years, more than 200 services related to investors and businesses will be rolled-out across the country.