Piyush Goyal launches CII's 'Ease of Doing Business' portal

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday launched the CII Ease of Doing Business and Regulatory Affairs portal for getting insights into India's business environment and to receive and track suggestions for improvement.

The portal was launched at the 2nd Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) – Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) national conference on Ease of Doing Business held here.

The portal attempts to provide status and updates on key initiatives on 'Ease of Doing Business' by both the government and apex business chamber CII. With a dedicated member dashboard, users can track progress and submissions on a real-time basis ensuring transparency, accountability, and meaningful and timely resolution of concerns.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister Goyal said that the Union government believes in cooperative federalism and was trying to make life better and easier for businesses and citizens.

He appealed to the participants from industry and state governments to be open to new ideas of working, noting that a change of mindset and the willingness to accept ideas has a snowballing multiplier effect on businesses.

The minister reiterated that the Government's National Single Window System (NSWS) guide for investors to identify and apply for approvals as per their business requirements needs inputs from industry.

Unless industry is engaging with the National Single Window System, getting licenses through it, and also providing inputs to the Centre on it and industrial land bank to make it better, the initiative will not succeed, he added.

On Jan Vishwas 2.0 Bill, the Minister said that the Government was actively looking to decriminalise 300 more laws. He urged CII to sensitise its members to begin respecting the spirit of the law and highlighted that the tendency to make profits by exploiting legal loopholes is detrimental to the economy and Ease of Doing Business.

He pointed out that technological upgradation in State and Central-level government portals is required to make them more agile, faster, smarter and modern. He also spoke on the need to clamp down on the spreading of misinformation and urged India Inc. to recognise the problem areas and make simple changes that can have a pan-India impact.

The minister urged stakeholders present at the event to work at three times the speed, three times harder and get three times more output to make India the third-largest economy in the next three years.

Elaborating further on the power of three, he pointed out that the power of the Government, the industry bodies and the stakeholders converging together can make a difference in business and legal processes.

Emphasising the importance of feedback for further improvement, he said that the synergy between the Government and the stakeholders will have a positive impact on 'Ease of Doing Business'. Urging the participants to build up the momentum for change, he noted that if the States, Centre, local bodies and the industry work together the country will have transformational results.

The Minister suggested that CII should come up with a tangible, time-bound action plan and engage with industries to start making a commitment to give preferences to Indian businesses for economic progress. He expressed hope that the industry body would play the role of a bridge between the stakeholders and the Government in easing regulations and expanding businesses.