NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government has decided to come up with new rules for maintenance of registers by enterprises to ensure compliance to at least nine crucial labour laws after it failed miserably to bring about any significant improvement in India’s ranking in the latest World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report. In a draft notification, titled ‘Ease of Compliance to Maintain Registers under various Labour Laws Rules, 2016’, the Bandaru Dattatreya-led labour ministry has proposed issuing new forms that will work as a combined register which can be maintained by enterprises either electronically or otherwise and can be provided at the time of inspection under any of the nine labour laws mentioned in the draft notification for the ease of compliance. 

Shri M Venkaiah Naidu, Minister for Information & Broadcasting has said that as part of the Government's initiative of Ease of Doing Business, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has completely done away with the process of obtaining an Annual Renewal for TV channels in the current form. Elaborating further, Shri Naidu said that Broadcasters who have been given the permission for Uplinking or Downlinking can continue their operations by simply paying the annual permission fee upto 60 days before the due date, which by itself will be treated as permission for continuation of the channel for a further period of one year. 

As part of trade facilitation measures, the Customs Department has drawn plans to organise road shows and outreach programmes on the scheme of Authorised Economic Operator (AEO), which is a crucial component of its Ease-of-Doing-Business (EODB) initiatives.

Though AEO certification is not mandatory for business entities, they are being asked to go for it in view of the advantages like minimal inspections and exemptions from some procedures and financial securities. The underlying objective is to speed up the transactions without compromising on transparency. Customs Commissioner S.K. Rahman has recently written letters to those who participated in the outreach programmes conducted at 14 places seeking to know how many of them actually began the process of becoming AEOs and also to clear any apprehensions they might be having.

Taking the decision at a meeting on Saturday, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis further directed the departments to work out a plan to further bring down the permissions from 41 to 34 in a month, as part of his exercise to get rid of the permit raj and simplify procedures for entrepreneurs in the state. The rationalisation of permissions, licenses and applications had become necessary to check the complex procedures and inordinate delays across sectors. The meeting further outlined the objectives of curtailing the permission procedures. The decision aims at boosting the investments and promote hospitality industry, including hotels, tourism, transportation related projects.

The state has also emphasised on the need for integrated approach where civic authorities, revenue, excise, environment and urban development departments come together so individuals or groups willing to set up new ventures are not subjected to red-tapism. As per the laid norms, it was mandatory for those setting up projects to file atleast 70 applications to get permission for licences/approvals in the hospitality sector. These applications have now been brought down to 12.

A single-window clearance for ease of construction and ease of building approval will become a reality by this year, said Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu. Seven ministries, including urban development, aviation, environment, railway, culture and defence, have met nine times on single-window clearance. A final meeting will take place soon with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue, he said at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of the Builders Association of India.

Once the ease of approval and ease of construction system is implemented, builders need not go to individual ministries for approvals. Permission and clearance will be given by local bodies within 60 days of submission of application; otherwise, it will be deemed to have been agreed. “We have done a lot of home work. The Prime Minister is insisting on ease of approvals and ease of doing business,” he said. Later, talking to newspersons, Naidu said there has been a broad consensus on the single-window clearance. “We are in advanced stage of finalising ease of construction,” he said.

Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have jointly topped the ease of doing business ranking, while Gujarat has slipped to the third position in the list prepared by the World Bank and the Indian government’s department of industrial policy and promotion this year. Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana occupied the fourth, fifth and sixth slots in the index based on the degree of implementation of the government’s 340-point Business Reform Action Plan.

The Action Plan includes reforms on 58 regulatory processes, policies, practices or procedures spread across 10 reform areas spanning the lifecycle of a typical business. These are mainly single window clearance, tax reforms, labour and environment reforms, dispute resolution and construction permit. In the 2015 index, Gujarat featured at the top, with Andhra Pradesh grabbing the second position and Telangana the 13th. The 2016 Index shows those in the list of top 10 states providing a better climate for businesses include Jharkhand (7th), Rajasthan (8th), Uttarakhand (9th) and Maharashtra (10th).

The Civil Aviation Ministry has proposed amendments to the Aircraft Act, 1937, in order to make it more easier for aircraft lessors to carry out their business in the country. To make it easier for overseas aircraft lessors, the government has proposed setting a deadline of five working days for giving permission to fly back de-registered aircraft to their respective jurisdictions. The proposal is part of the government’s efforts to improve the ease of doing business in the country’s fast growing aviation sector, which has been seeing over 20 per cent growth in the last nearly two years.

Lessors have faced problems in taking back aircraft leased to Indian carriers in the past, especially with regard to shuttered Kingfisher Airlines. Recently, regional carrier Air Pegasus’ three planes were de-registered by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The Civil Aviation Ministry has proposed amendments to the Aircraft Act, 1937, in order to make it more easier for aircraft lessors to carry out their business in the country.

India continues to rank low at 130th position in terms of ease of doing business, with the country seeing little or no improvement in dealing with construction permits, getting credit and other parameters. In the World Bank’s latest ‘Doing Business’ report, India’s place remained unchanged from last year’s original ranking of 130 among the 190 economies that were assessed on various parameters. However, the last year’s ranking has been now revised to 131 from which the country has improved its place by one spot.

The government has been making efforts to further improve the ease of doing business and aims to bring the country in the top 50. Expressing disappointment over no change in India’s ranking in the World Bank’s index on ease of doing business, Indian government regretted that the report did not take into consideration 12 key reforms undertaken by the government.