Roc Office To Be Set Up In Pune

The finance minister, P Chidambaram, has cleared the Department of Company Affairs (DCA) proposal to set up an office of the Registrar of Companies (RoC) in Pune, along with the bifurcation of the Delhi offices of the RoC.

Maharashtra has one RoC at Bombay with two branches, which will go up to two with the opening up of the RoC at Pune.

The opening up of a new RoC at Pune is expected to take the load off the RoC Bombay, while the bifurcation of the existing offices at Delhi will comparatively ease pressure on the RoC Delhi, which is presently operating out of the CGO Complex.

 

After much delay, a positive step towards setting up additional RoCs is being taken now, following the recent meeting of the RoCs chaired by Chidambaram.

RoCs at Delhi and Maharashtra are fast growing centres in terms of incorporation of new companies, and in recent years, Delhi has outstripped Maharashtra in growth regarding these terms. The DCA is already in the process of renting accommodation on the premises of the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium and the move is expected to end the complaints from companies that the offices of the RoC in Delhi are so ill-equipped that even space for company representatives to sit down while they await their turn is not available.

In order to improve the scrutiny, monitoring and investigation of companies, the government is also proposing to separate the registers of public listed and private limited companies.

This separation, though complicated, is expected to help the regulatory agencies focus on the scrutiny of public listed companies where a default has larger implication as compared to a similar violation by a private limited company on account of public holding.The DCA is also proposing to collect a one-time lumpsum collection of fees towards registration of charges in order to revamp the functioning of RoCs.

This is a procedure required under company law, whereby every time a company takes an institutional loan, it is required to create a charge by paying fees to the RoC in favour of the lending agency.

Generally, companies tend to periodically get their loan exposure increased, which means that they have to line up before the registrar for creating this charge. The one-time lumpsum payment will help companies resorting to repeated loan exposures.