State to launch single-window clearance for wooing investors

In a landmark move to ensure ease of doing business for industries and speed up clearances for investors, the state government is set to launch a single-window clearance system.

"The biggest (ease of doing business) reform will be the single-window system, which will be a reality (soon)," said Maharashtra chief secretary Swadheen Kshatriya, adding that they were "working hard and wanted to institutionalise it".

"We will decentralise administrative and economic powers legally... The single-window institution will have legal powers."

Kshatriya added that this would ensure that the authority won't back reference proposals. It will prevent proposals from being shunted between various departments.

The clearance platform is likely to be unveiled in the investor congregation to promote the Make in India and Make in Maharashtra agendas to be held in Mumbai from February 13 to 18. The event, which is being organised by the Centre's Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, will seek to showcase India and Maharashtra as an attractive investment destination for international investors.

"The single-window institution will have powers to sanction, reject and modify," said Kshatriya.

"Just keeping people there will not help as past experience shows we will have to delegate powers by law to the single-window institution," he said, adding that the development commissioner, industries, and even those at the district and divisional level, among other officers, will get this authority.

"We have studied various models in the country; those in Punjab and Haryana are the best examples," noted Kshatriya, adding that the state's project would be on similar lines.

The February event will "showcase the country and the state with particular focus on investment opportunities".

"This will be a never-before kind of event," said Kshatriya. Inking of MoUs will also be part of the summit.

The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation already has a single-window service to register plots and apply online for various services and the state industries department's Maharashtra Industry, Trade and Investment Facilitation Cell is a single point of contact for Government to Business services for projects with an investment of over Rs10 crore.

The proposed single-window act will streamline the system further and lubricate the interaction between industries and the government by reducing red tape and delays, which affects commissioning of intended investments.

For example, according to the Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2014-15, from August 1991 to March 2012, a total of 4,246 FDI projects (out of 20,643 at the all-India level), amounting to Rs97,799 crore (as against Rs4,25,811 crore at the national level) were approved. Of these, only 45% were commissioned and 10% are still under execution, with a share of investment of 51% and 8%, respectively.

Of the total industrial proposals received in the country in the said period, Maharashtra's share in the number of proposals and investment is about 18% and 10%, respectively.