Government is taking steps to improve ease of doing business and has proposed integrating services of all departments and ministries with ‘eBiz’ portal by end of the month, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said.
The Minister said that the government is committed to ease the entire process of doing business in India through new de-licensing and de-regulation measures that will reduce complexity and significantly increase speed and transparency.
“It is further proposed to integrate the services of all central government departments and ministries with ‘eBiz’, a single window platform, for services by 31 December 2014,” she said while addressing faculty and students of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).
She said in a short span of time, the government has announced measures like process of applying for industrial licence and Industrial Entrepreneur Memorandum being made online and this service is now available to entrepreneurs on 24×7 basis at the eBiz website.
This had led to easing of filing applications and online payment of service charges.
She said that further research on practical lines can throw up new and innovative ideas to make ease of doing services in India a sustained reality.
“We are moving carefully and making sure that decisions are going to enable better manufacturing and thereby enable better exports too,” she said.
India has been ranked 142 among the 189 countries in the latest report on ease for doing business, falling two places from last year’s ranking. The government has said that positive impact of new reforms should be reflected in the next year’s ranking. Efforts are being made to bring India into the top 50.
‘eBiz’ provides all business and investment related regulatory services across central, state and local governments on a single platform.
Further the minister emphasised on the need to boost manufacturing sector in the country.
India’s GDP is largely supported by services sector and growth of the manufacturing sector was largely stagnated at about 16 per cent, she said, adding the country’s share in global manufacturing trade is just 1.8 per cent.
Citing China’s case, she said its manufacturing sector contributes 34 per cent in the GDP and 13 per cent share in global manufacturing trade. In 1991, it was only 2.9 per cent of global trade.
“Now I would want empirical data and inferences derived from the data to tell the government that move this way…Research is again required on how ‘Make in India’ concept can be made into a successful and complete reality,” Sitharaman said.
