Govt sets up panel to reduce permissions for investors

Government today constituted an 11-member expert committee that will suggest ways to cut down on multiple permissions for investors, a move aimed at promoting ease of doing business in the country.
Former Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Ajay Shankar will be the chairman of the committee. Its members include Airtel Vice-president Manoj Kohli, and Jaijit Bhattacharya, partner at consulting firm KPMG.
"In furtherance of Finance Minister's Budget speech, an expert committee has been constituted to suggest simplified compliance," the Commerce and Industry Ministry said in a statement.
The committee has been constituted for examining the possibility of replacing multiple prior permissions with pre-existing regulatory mechanism and preparing a draft legislation for this purpose.

The terms of reference of the committee include studying the requirement of various prior permissions with an exhaustive inventory of such permissions; examining the possibility of replacing these prior permissions with a pre-existing (proposed) regulatory mechanism.
It would identify safeguards to be put in place while replacing the system of prior permission and integrating these safeguards in the proposed regulatory mechanism and recommend a framework of the proposed regulatory mechanism; and draft the proposed legislation.

It would submit its report within 30 days, it said.
The other members of the committee are - Siddhartha Sibal of Accenture; CII's Secretary General Chandrajeet Banerjee; Manoj Kumar Singh, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Environment & Forests, and Alok Kumar, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

Besides, it would have Dhruba Purkayastha from IFC; British High Commission's Senior Economic Advisor Aurodeep Nandi; Abraham Zachariah from ITC (Bangalore) and Shailendra Singh, Joint Secretary in the DIPP.