 "Government prepares to woo World Bank officials")
The central government on Monday showcased its various initiatives towards achieving greater ‘ease of doing business’ in the country to a visiting World Bank delegation.
The World Bank team is in India as part of the multilateral development bank’s annual assessment of the levels of ‘ease of doing business’ in different countries. The team was briefed by officials from the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), Central Board of Direct Taxes, department of financial services, and the law ministry. The team will spend the next two weeks talking to various stakeholders in Delhi and Mumbai.
Officials from DIPP said they were confident of securing a higher ranking for India in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business Report, the 2016 edition of which placed India 130th among 189 countries.
The global ranking of countries is based on certain indicators such as how easy it is to start a business, register a property, get credit, pay taxes, and resolve insolvency. India had performed the best in ‘protecting minority shareholders’ category (eight rank) and the worst in ‘dealing with construction permits’ (183rd rank).
After the last report in October 2015, the government had streamlined existing norms to improve its score on these indicators, especially on building permits, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. “We have to convince the World Bank delegation of the same,” said a DIPP official on the condition of anonymity.
He was confident the two areas where the country had made significant strides according to the last report - starting a business and providing electricity - would help the government secure a higher ranking since bureaucratic and legal hurdles have been eased further in these areas.
The government has integrated about 20 services provided by various central government ministries on its online e-biz platform. These include those for securing employer registration, industrial licence, getting permanent account number (PAN), transferring shares in foreign currency, and getting custom duty concessions on project imports, etc.
The ministries of finance and corporate affairs have also pushed for paperless application for PAN and tax deduction and collection account numbers (TAN) as well as seamless exchange of data to provide newly incorporated companies with the same within a day.
Furthermore, 30 different services by Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Delhi were integrated as on June 7. The government is also keen to showcase the ground level implementation of reforms by various states, the official mentioned above said.
States had been given a set of 340 issues to work on, whose implementation details were to be submitted by July 7. As on that day, Uttarakhand and Telangana led the pack of states in implementing reforms on the issues. However, the window for the re-submission of clarifications by states would be open until July 31, according to the DIPP.
The Centre has asked the World Bank to rank states on the ease of doing business for the next three years, as it strives to ensure a high level of professionalism in and non-partisan nature of such an exercise. The first ranking of states came out in September last year which saw Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand leading. This time, the role of the DIPP in this exercise is mostly limited to facilitating the interactions between states and the World Bank.
However, the various initiatives might be missed by the World Bank since only the cities of Mumbai and Delhi are covered by it. Sources privy to the developments had earlier suggested that the government might push for the inclusion of other cities across the country, especially state capitals such as Chennai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
The World Bank team is in India as part of the multilateral development bank’s annual assessment of the levels of ‘ease of doing business’ in different countries. The team was briefed by officials from the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), Central Board of Direct Taxes, department of financial services, and the law ministry. The team will spend the next two weeks talking to various stakeholders in Delhi and Mumbai.
Officials from DIPP said they were confident of securing a higher ranking for India in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business Report, the 2016 edition of which placed India 130th among 189 countries.
The global ranking of countries is based on certain indicators such as how easy it is to start a business, register a property, get credit, pay taxes, and resolve insolvency. India had performed the best in ‘protecting minority shareholders’ category (eight rank) and the worst in ‘dealing with construction permits’ (183rd rank).
After the last report in October 2015, the government had streamlined existing norms to improve its score on these indicators, especially on building permits, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. “We have to convince the World Bank delegation of the same,” said a DIPP official on the condition of anonymity.
He was confident the two areas where the country had made significant strides according to the last report - starting a business and providing electricity - would help the government secure a higher ranking since bureaucratic and legal hurdles have been eased further in these areas.
The government has integrated about 20 services provided by various central government ministries on its online e-biz platform. These include those for securing employer registration, industrial licence, getting permanent account number (PAN), transferring shares in foreign currency, and getting custom duty concessions on project imports, etc.
The ministries of finance and corporate affairs have also pushed for paperless application for PAN and tax deduction and collection account numbers (TAN) as well as seamless exchange of data to provide newly incorporated companies with the same within a day.
Furthermore, 30 different services by Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Delhi were integrated as on June 7. The government is also keen to showcase the ground level implementation of reforms by various states, the official mentioned above said.
States had been given a set of 340 issues to work on, whose implementation details were to be submitted by July 7. As on that day, Uttarakhand and Telangana led the pack of states in implementing reforms on the issues. However, the window for the re-submission of clarifications by states would be open until July 31, according to the DIPP.
The Centre has asked the World Bank to rank states on the ease of doing business for the next three years, as it strives to ensure a high level of professionalism in and non-partisan nature of such an exercise. The first ranking of states came out in September last year which saw Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand leading. This time, the role of the DIPP in this exercise is mostly limited to facilitating the interactions between states and the World Bank.
However, the various initiatives might be missed by the World Bank since only the cities of Mumbai and Delhi are covered by it. Sources privy to the developments had earlier suggested that the government might push for the inclusion of other cities across the country, especially state capitals such as Chennai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
Major initiatives by the government under specific indicators of World Bank Doing Business ranking
1. STARTING A BUSINESS
- The requirement of opening a bank account has been removed as a mandatory condition for registration with ESIC and EPFO.
- Maharashtra state has combined the process of registration with VAT and Profession Tax. The registration will now be granted in 24 hours and the same has been adopted by Delhi VAT.
- No Environment clearance is required for 36 white industries.
- Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has completed the process of single window approval by integrating with internal departments as well as, AAI and NMA through a common application form.
- MCGM has introduced digital signing of building permit application, as well as maps, thereby eliminating need of physical submission of documents. The manual application for grant of construction permits has been discontinued.
- Municipal Corporations of Delhi has completed the process of single window approval by integrating with internal departments as well as DMRC, Delhi Fire Services, DUAC, AAI and NMA through a common application form.
- Maharashtra and Delhi have implemented lump-sum charges for electric connection thereby removing the need of an estimate and.
- Online application for connections above 100KVA mandatory in Maharashtra and Delhi.
- Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has implemented Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) by integrating FSSAI, Animal Quarantine, Plant Quarantine, Drug Controller and Wildlife Control Bureau for imports.
- The system of physical control and locking of public and private warehouses by Customs has been dispensed with and replaced by record based controls.
- The Arbitration and Conciliation Act has been amended to reduce the time taken in arbitration proceedings and grounds on which an award may be challenged.
- In Delhi, all sub-registrar offices have been digitized and Sub-registrar’s records have been integrated with the Land Records Department.
- In Maharashtra, all property tax records have been digitized.
- SARFAESI (Central Registry) Rules, 2011 has been amended to record security interest created on all types of property viz. movable, immovable as well as intangible.
- Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Bill has been passed in the Parliament
