Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, DIPP, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, today urged the Indian industry to actively engage, support and cooperate with the government to achieve ease of doing business and attract investments into the country.
Addressing a FICCI conference on 'Ease of Doing Business: Distance to Destination', Mr. Abhishek said that the Government was working on various spheres to accelerate the economic growth and had successfully brought about effective changes in many Acts and policies. Now incorporating a company meant less paper work and easier process, application of PAN was online besides services such as EPFO and ESI but the industry needed to provide constant feedback to the government on the efficiency and effectiveness of the systems to plug the gaps that still existed.
Mr. Abhishek suggested that FICCI should undertake a study which clearly states the areas where government intervention could facilitate business. The study should highlight the best practices of other countries in those areas and how India could adapt those practices to suit its requirements.
Mr. Abhishek said that the states are competing with each other to attract investment by way of simplifying their processes and making their systems online. The 340 Action Plan has allowed states to clearly showcase their achievements and improvement areas on various parameters, making the process of ranking the states for ease of doing business transparent.
On the occasion, FICCI Trilegal Knowledge Paper 'Ease of Doing Business: Distance to Destination' was released by Mr. Abhishek.
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In her keynote address Ms. Vijaya Sampath, Chairperson, FICCI Corporate Laws Committee, said that the World Bank ranks a country's ease of doing business on three parameters - procedure, time and cost. Hence to improve the ease of doing business ranking, the government needs to facilitate the private sector. For this the government needs to make helpful interventions by way of formulating quantitative and quality regulations that would bring a right balance to the environment of business. She added that effectiveness and efficiency were the two major imperatives that needed to be embedded in the system.
Mr. Sidharth Birla, Past President, FICCI and Mentor, FICCI Corporate Laws Committee, said that with ease of doing business there was a need to bring about competitiveness in Indian industries and services sector. He added that FICCI has been relentlessly working on various aspects of economy with different Ministries and Departments of the Government and regulatory bodies in the country such as SEBI, CCI to improve ease of doing business.
In this context, Mr. Birla pointed out that FICCI was the first to advocate the need to ensure that norms for doing business should be so designed as to enable India to be counted amongst the first 50 countries in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking.
In his presentation on FICCI Trilegal paper, Mr. Harsh Pais, Partner, Trilegal, said that the paper has focused on areas where government intervention has significantly contributed to ease of doing business. The four key areas discussed in the paper are Corporate governance; Solving insolvency; Anti-corruption enforcement; and Amended Arbitration Act.
In his concluding remarks Mr. Dinesh Chandra Arora, Secretary, Institute of Company Secretaries of India, said that in the last two years the government has put in place many transformative polices and processes. Now the time is to effectively implement the various initiatives and policies to attract investment and improve ease of doing business. He added that simplified processes, single window clearances and online registrations were some of the aspects that would make it India an easy business destination.
Dr A Didar Singh, Secretary General, FICCI, said that with the landmark GST reform now moving ahead doing business in India would be greatly facilitated. The environment in which the business operates needs to change and GST would be playing a key role in bringing about this change.
