Ease of Doing Business bill tabled in House

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, June 1: Industry & Commerce minister Chandra Mohan Patowary today tabled in the Assembly the Assam Ease of Doing Business Bill which aims at facilitating enterprises with a view to attract fresh investment in the State through an easy computerized clearance system, so that all applications, information, rules and regulations, reforms etc of the departments can be filed and accessed from a single website ebling single window clearance.

The new legislation seeks to provide speedy processing of applications and issue of various clearances by various competent authorities of the government for setting up industrial or service sector undertakings.

The Bill replaces the Assam Ease of Doing Business Ordince, 2016 which came into effect on February 26 last.

The matter of ease of doing business was taken up by the Central government to facilitate investors as well as to create an investment-friendly atmosphere amongst investors in the industrial and service sectors.

The Assam government has started implementing the ambitious tiol e-Governce Project (NeGP) and has earmarked the proposed law as the most important step to streamline administrative procedures and create an ebling business environment for ease of doing business in the State.

The legislation envisages establishment of a bureau – Assam Bureau of Investment Promotion (ABIP) – for the purpose of overall supervision and administration of speedy processing of applications and issue of various clearances. The Board of Governors of the ABIP will comprise the Chief Minister as chairman, Industry minister as vice-chairman, ministers and senior-most secretaries of all the line departments as members and at least three representatives from industry bodies.

 The Chief Executive Officer of the single window agency will be the member-secretary of the board.

“On receipt of application form online, the system shall automatically forward it to the competent authority. The single window agency shall hand over hard copies of such applications to the officer under the disposal of the CEO to follow up and get the clearance within the stipulated time-frame,” the bill states.

“The single window agency shall submit a report to the bureau, the government as well as to the chairman of the executive committee about the status of applications received, disposal, pending and reasons for pending on monthly basis,” it adds.