Punjab Govt. Scrapped 479 Industrial Compliances
The scrapping of 479 compliances is expected to make ease of doing business more approachable for industries in Punjab.
08-04-2021: The Punjab government has scrapped 479 compliances which were required earlier for seeking various approvals and renewals by industrialists, said Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan.
She said this while chairing a high-level meeting with the administrative secretaries and added, ”These compliances were part of a total 541 age-old mandatory approvals identified to be scrapped under Phase-I of reducing compliance burden by various departments.”
She further informed that the state government submitted its action plan on the Union Government’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) portal on March 31, after doing away with this unnecessary paperwork.
Mahajan also directed the administrative secretaries to identify rules, regulations, and archaic laws, which prescribe imprisonment as punishment for minor offences, and to work towards decriminalizing those regulations with provisions for financial penalties, if required.
Later, Secretaries apprised Mahajan that as part of Phase-II plan, 70 compliances have been identified across four areas that require amendments to the existing laws, implementation of which is underway and needs to be completed by August 15.
Continuing with its endeavour to promote trade and industry besides improving ‘ease of doing business in the state, the Punjab Government has done away with 479 compliances that were earlier required for seeking various approvals and renewals by the industrialists.
This was disclosed by Punjab Chief Secretary, Ms. Vini Mahajan, after chairing a high-level meeting with the administrative secretaries to review the progress of reducing regulatory compliance burden and implementation of the recommendations in this regard to promote ‘ease of doing business for the MSMEs in the state, here on Monday.
Ms. Mahajan also analyzed the proposals submitted by the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) and reviewed the user feedback strategy for State Reforms Action Plan (SRAP) 2020-21. The Chief Secretary directed the administrative secretaries to identify rules, regulations, and archaic laws, which prescribe imprisonment as punishment for minor offences, and to work towards decriminalizing those regulations with provisions for financial penalties if required.
She also directed the Department of Governance Reforms to work towards reducing the compliance burden for citizen-centric services to ensure ‘ease of living for the people in the stat
The Chief Secretary further asked the administrative secretaries to examine the recommendations pertaining to their departments suggested by the GAME and work towards making amendments accordingly to address the issues highlighted as this could be a lighthouse project for the rest of the country for creating solutions to empower the MSMEs.
Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Alok Shekhar, informed the meeting that the areas/ compliances identified in Phase-I included those that do not require amendments to any laws like removal of renewal requirements for licences, implementing third party or joint inspections with government authorities, standardizing and simplifying returns filing and reducing the number of filings, rationalizing or removing maintenance of registers and records, minimizing or eliminating display requirements for licenses, and digitizing and simplifying all manual records and procedures.
The Chief Secretary was informed that as part of the Phase-II plan, 70 compliances have been identified across four areas that require amendments to the existing laws, implementation of which was underway and needs to be completed by August 15.
Ms. Mahajan appreciated the efforts undertaken by all the departments in the implementation of reforms and directed the concerned secretaries to disseminate information as well as engage with stakeholders to create awareness about the new reforms implemented and online services developed.
Pertinently, online industry outreach and stakeholder engagement workshops were being conducted by the DICs in coordination with the departments to create awareness about new reforms, services, and query/ grievance resolution in the state.
