AJMER: Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Tuesday staged an interactive session on 'ease of doing business' between small scale industries (SSI) and government of Rajasthan but SSI feels that they are not at all at ease with the process of government and will probably have to shut their industries if things don't get better. To facilitate state government policies and make business easy, CII took the initiative in Ajmer to build bridge between government departments and small scale industries. The district has leading small scale industries and the economy of Ajmer mostly depends on this sector. CII is trying to collect feedback from industries to prepare a blue print for implementing the process of doing business.

Talking on the occasion, Ajitabh Sharma, commissioner of industries, government of Rajasthan, said that the government has changed the track and now industries will evaluate the policies and plans which government wanted to implement. "Government claims development but going by ground reality some improvements are required," said Sharma.

The Centre has firmed up a 295-point reform agenda for states to boost their ranking in the ease of doing business this year, listing dramatic improvement in parametres—including starting a business, electricity connections and granting clearances across various sectors—as key targets, official sources said. States have been given the target to facilitate the starting of a company in just six days, compared with an average of 26 days now, the sources told FE. Digitisation of various processes and faster clearances will be key in achieving this objective, they added. All the targets are set after extensive consultations with states.

The move is crucial, as India’s rank in “starting a business” in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index worsened four notches in the recently-released report from a year before to 155th among 190 nations. This was among the worst-performing segments last year, as the country’s ranking barely improved from the previous year to 130th. The World Bank, however, surveys just two destinations (Delhi and Mumbai, and not all states) for ranking India among other nations in ease of doing business. Nevertheless, the target of six days to start a business has been given to all, including Maharashtra and Delhi, the sources said.

The Tamil Nadu government plans to aggregate large areas of land through a ‘land pooling model’ to allow owners join to hands with the government to develop land for industrial use, according to State Industries Secretary Vikram Kapur. “We are trying an innovative model of land aggregation, which possibly was not tried in the country except in Gujarat, that too in urban development. It will make landowners stakeholders and will be win-win situation for everyone,” Kapur said in his address at FICCI TNSC: First Executive Committee Meeting of Tamil Nadu 2017.

The state government plans to create a land bank of nearly 54,000 acres of developed industrial lands. “We have almost reached the half-way mark and the rest of it is in various stages of acquisition. Under the new Land Acquisition Act, there are certain difficulties, including providing higher compensation to owners,” he said.

Kolkata, Jan 12: Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India today said the new code is not meant to address any fraud on the part of company promoters but allows creditors and other stakeholders to go for health check of the corporate at the first available opportunity. “The code is not going to address fraud and inter corporate management. This provides all the stakeholders to trigger the process at the first available opportunity,” Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India chairman MS Sahoo said here today when asked whether the code can check frauds by promoters.

Speaking on the sidelines of a CII organised seminar on the newly enacted code, Sahoo said any creditor or even employee can trigger the process if debt repayment default is Rs 1 lakh or above. The board feels that regulations for the code has been in place from December and some more time was needed to get the feedback on its success. The code aims at time-bound resolution for insolvency and exit as part of ease of doing business. Sahoo said that the board is also working on a framework for direct liquidation bypassing insolvency resolution. “We will come out with framework for voluntary liquidation approach, that is direct liquidation by February-end or March.”

New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is all set for a complete revamp of the broadcast sector with a new regulatory framework in the year 2017. Implementation of the pending draft orders, consultation process for over-the-top video streaming sector, interoperability of set-top boxes (STB) and ease of doing business are some of the issues to be taken up by the telecom regulator in this calendar year, said Trai chairman R.S.Sharma.

“We have listed out five items for our agenda in 2017—first of which is the implementation of the draft regulatory framework, as and when it becomes operational. Secondly, we will have a holistic consultation paper on the issues related to ease of doing business in the broadcast sector,” Sharma said after a closed-door meeting with broadcast stakeholders in the capital on Tuesday. In October, Trai had proposed three different draft orders on tariff framework, interconnection agreements between broadcasters and distribution networks and quality of service provided to the subscribers. However, television broadcasters are of the view that the tariff order stands in conflict with the Copyright Act, 1957.

The central government plans to cut to four the number of days taken to start a business in Delhi or Mumbai, from the current average of 26 days. The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) aims to do so via a combination of measures -- streamlining the application process, single-window clearance and more digitisation. Ramesh Abhishek, the department’s secretary, has told state commerce ministers and officials these would be in place by March.

Mumbai: The industry department has asked the law ministry to bring an ordinance to allow the government to open fast-track commercial courts in Delhi and Mumbai to improve India’s record in enforcing contracts. The move is aimed at improving India’s ranking in the World Bank’s Doing Business report. India ranks 172 out of 190 countries under the “enforcing contracts” indicator in the latest report.

Parliament enacted the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act in December 2015 for speedy and time-bound disposal of commercial disputes. The commercial courts are to be constituted at the district level by state governments after consultation with the high court concerned. However, the law provided that no commercial court will be constituted for the territory over which high courts have exclusive civil jurisdiction to hear commercial matters, such as in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, which were presidencies or special administrative divisions during the British rule.

NEW DELHI: India has emerged as the most optimistic country globally in terms of business optimism as the country's businesses are high on expectations of increasing revenue, employment, profitability, says a survey. According to the latest Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR) survey, Indian businesses are the most optimistic about economic recovery in 2017. 

"India continues to stand out as the one economy which has huge potential to continue to grow and this is reflected in the survey where Indian businesses are most optimistic and high on expectations of increasing revenue, employment, profitability," said Harish H V, Partner - India leadership team, Grant Thornton India.