Narendra Modi government expedites one-stop single window system for investors

Come 1 April, 2015 and the system through which businesses in India seek clearances from government would get revolutionised. Officials are working overtime to turn true prime minister Narendra Modi's dream of ending bureaucratic roadblocks for industrialists by April 2015 and thus it is developing an online portal which would be a "one-stop single window system" where investors can log on to seek all required clearances, in few cases even over 100, to set an industry in India.

During his election campaign, Modi repeatedly emphasised on cutting down red-tapism to improve investment climate and to give confidence to investors. He spoke of similar steps even after becoming PM and this move now comes after a meeting of industry representatives with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). "Work is on in full swing to fasten and simplify clearance processes. So, imagine a scenario on 1 April, 2015 when an industrialist doesn't have to go to any government office and he just opens the portal sitting from his office, files an application for setting up an industry and that's it. PM Narendra Modi has been talking of ease of business and digitisation … this project is exactly that ... easing the business of the businessman. It would change the paradigm of investment in India," top government sources told dna who added that Infosys is helping them in developing it.

"This will bring transparency and will curb all middlemen and chances of corruption. It would solve the fundamental problem of projects being held up and address the cause of delays happening in the country. Everything will have a timeline. Now whenever there would be a delay we will know where it is happening and who is responsible for it. So there would be no more blame games," sources added.

To put it simply, the government feels this would revolutionize the clearance seeking procedures for industry as rather than going to every ministry and pleading or in some cases even extending favours (read corruption) companies would have to simply submit everything online from where every file would go to the concerned department. Companies then would also be able to track the progress of their applications online.

The work for this system, "ebiz", is being handled by the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) of the Cabinet Secretariat alongwith the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). The interested investor would be required to log into this platform, specify the sector and the system will automatically direct him to a page detailing all clearances required from the Central and state governments.

Sources revealed that the work for this project is going on at a breakneck speed. "In last five years, this ebiz platform could get provisions for only two clearances online but in next some months, we would add over 100 such clearances. For example permission from Director General Foreign Trade (DGFT), Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and several others would be online in next three-four months itself," sources added.

Other clearances which would also find space on this ebiz platform would be PAN, TAN, environment clearance, forest clearance, mining clearance, wildlife clearance, railway, defence, steel, coal etc.
Explaining further, a senior government official said, "At present none -- industrialists, industry bodies or even government officers themselves – is unaware about number of permissions one project requires from both centre and state. But with this platform, companies would be able to apply for clearances from both central and state governments."

PMG is thus consulting all stakeholders like industry, ministry and state governments for details of clearances and timelines are being fixed based on those discussions.
The system would also have ready information as to how many clearances a project requires because there are a lot of clearances that are common to all projects like PAN etc but this system would also provide list of sector specific clearances. 

"We are making it into an intelligent system ... so that it tells a company who for example wants to set up a steel industry would get to know how many clearances and from where are required ... similarly it will tell for nuclear projects or coal projects that these many are required," said the senior government official.

"Some states are making their individual software systems. So, we are studying them and this single platform would connect all of them so that industry doesn't have to go to states separately. All can be done from this central system and sitting at one place," the senior government official added.

The target by 1 April, 2015 is to integrate online over 80 percent of the required clearances and at least launch 15-16 of such clearances online within next three months on trial basis.