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The issue came up for discussion during a closed-door meeting convened by cabinet secretary Ajit Seth here today with Indian industry.
The government, it is learnt, wanted to identify steps it can 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 policy and correcting the inverted duty structure," minister of state (independent charge) for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman told the Lok Sabha during question hour.
During discussions with the industry, it is learnt that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is taking various steps, to begin with, to promote SEZs.
Steps that are currently under various stages of implementation for SEZs are those related to timely service delivery, digitization and online processing of various activities related to SEZs and standardization of procedures in all SEZs.
Online processing of various activities that take place in the SEZ units and developers was made effective from this month. Besides, the government has also implemented standardization of procedure, practices and forms in all SEZs.
"We are keen to work closely with the government to ensure greater degree of 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 (CII).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target significantly improving India's plummeting ranking in the World Bank's index on 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 World Bank, falling two places from last year's ranking.
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The Commerce and Industry Ministry has already taken several measures and has proposed a series of steps, including drastically reducing the time for registration of business to one day, single registration of all labour laws and cut in number of taxes to improve ease of doing business in India.
The ministry along with other departments is engaged in removing barriers and simplify cumbersome procedures related to approvals and clearance mechanism for business activities.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), has identified sectors and specific reforms that are urgently required to substantially improve India's ranking in ease of doing business.
It has listed as many as 46 action points for different central government ministries and state governments for improving the country's business climate.
For Corporate Affairs Ministry, it has suggested that the time taken in registration of business from existing 27 days be reduced to only one day as in Canada and New Zealand.
It has also called for doing away with the requirement of company seal and removal of minimum paid up capital for starting a business.
During the last three years, India received an average of $30 billion annual foreign direct investment. India needs huge investments to give a boost to its manufacturing sector and to create million of jobs.
