The government is working on various measures in an effort to boost the slackening pace of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), it says, to facilitate the ease of doing business.
The issue came for discussion during a closed-door meeting convened by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth here on Friday with business representatives.
The government, it is learnt, wanted to identify steps it could take to promote its Make in India initiative, with a vision to transform India into a global manufacturing hub.
"For the creation of a conducive business environment, the government is constantly simplifying and rationalising the processes and procedures for boosting investor sentiment, simplifying FDI (foreign direct investment) policy and correcting the inverted duty structure," Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Lok Sabha during Question Hour.
Among the steps in various stages of implementation for SEZs are those related to timely service delivery. Online processing of various activities in SEZ units and developers was made effective from this month. The government has also implemented standardisation of procedures, practices and forms in all SEZs.
"We are keen to work closely with the government to ensure a greater degree of (information) technology adoption which will allow concurrent clearances in place of sequential clearances, to effect simplification of procedures and processes," said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general, Confederation of Indian Industry.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of significantly improving India's sliding ranking in the World Bank's global index on the ease of doing business, to 50th position in the next two years. India has been ranked 142 among the 189 countries in the latest report of the Bank, down two places from last year's ranking.
The commerce and industry ministry has proposed more steps, including drastically reducing the time for registration of business to one day, single registration of all labour laws and a cut in the number of taxes. It and other departments says they're engaged in removing barriers and simplifying cumbersome procedures related to approvals and a clearance mechanism for business activities.
The department of industrial policy and promotion has identified sectors and specific reforms required right away to substantially improve India's ranking in the ease of doing business. It says it has listed 46 action points for different central government ministries and state governments in this regard.
With inputs from PTI
