Public feedback sought for easing investment permissions

Moving to further ease doing business in India, the government has sought suggestions from the public on ways to cut down on multiple permissions for investors, the commerce ministry said on Thursday

Announcing that the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) has constituted an 11-member expert committee on the matter, the ministry said in a statement that "suggestions on the subject have been invited from the public".

The terms of reference of the committee include studying the requirement of various prior permissions with an exhaustive inventory and examining the possibility of replacing these prior permissions with a pre-existing regulatory mechanism, the statement said.

It would identify safeguards to be put in place while replacing the system of prior permission and integrating the same in the proposed regulatory mechanism, recommend a framework and draft the proposed legislation, it added.

Former DIPP secretary Ajay Shankar is chairman of the panel, whose members include Airtel vice-president Manoj Kohli and accounting firm KPMG India partner Jaijit Bhattacharya.