Cabinet Secy to meet officials, industry tomorrow on ease of business

Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth has convened a meeting of senior government officials and industry representatives tomorrow to firm up steps to ensure that India shows improvement in 'ease of doing business'.

The meeting will deliberate upon measures for improving ease of doing business in the country, sources said.

India has been ranked 142 among the 189 countries in the latest report of the World Bank, falling two places from last year's ranking.

The meeting assumes significance as government is aiming to improve India's ranking in the ease of doing business index to 50th position in the next two years.

The Commerce and Industry Ministry has already taken several measures and has proposed a series of steps, including drastically reducing the time for registration of business to one day, single registration of all labour laws and cut in number of taxes to improve ease of doing business in India.

The ministry along with other departments is engaged in removing barriers and simplify cumbersome procedures related to approvals and clearance mechanism for business activities.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), has identified sectors and specific reforms that are urgently required to substantially improve India's ranking in ease of doing business.

It has listed as many as 46 action points for different central government ministries and state governments for improving the country's business climate.

For Corporate Affairs Ministry, it has suggested that the time taken in registration of business from existing 27 days be reduced to only one day as in Canada and New Zealand.

It has also called for doing away with the requirement of company seal and removal of minimum paid up capital for starting a business.

During the last three years, India received an average of USD 30 billion annual foreign direct investment.

India needs huge investments to give a boost to its manufacturing sector and to create million of jobs.

Recently US Trade Representative Michael Froman has asked India to work on improving the ranking in order to attract global investors.