Maadhyam portal to help doing business easier

NEW DELHI: India will soon launch a national single window system for regulatory clearances that will facilitate domestic as well as global investors in getting over 560 types of regulatory approvals online, including permission to start a fuel retail business, get a permanent exporter license, set up a unit in the special economic zone (SEZ), register a copyright, start a power exchange, or obtain license to start a private security agency.

The ‘ease of doing business’ initiative, named as ‘Maadhyam’, is currently under trial and will be launched by the end of this month or the next, a commerce and industry ministry official said, asking not to be named.

According to the trial version, the online system works in three steps—filling a ‘know your approval’ (KYA), applying for approvals through a single interface, and tracking the status in real time. The system provides for secure storage and access of documents for multiple regulatory approvals at the Centre and states.

Maadhyam is also integrated with the states’ single window systems. Participating states are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Telangana.

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on June 22 said the single window system will facilitate investors “to know the approvals required to establish a particular business”, apply for them and track their status.

India is making efforts to make doing business easier for investors, a factor that global firms wanting to shift base from China to another country take into account, a second official said, asking not to be named.

“Extensive testing of the integration is ongoing. The number of authorities and clearances on the portal will be increased progressively over a period of time,” the first official said.

Tax consultant Aditya Singhania said Maadhayam will facilitate commencement of businesses. “The portal is loaded with features and seems to operate in time bound manner with the functionality to track the real time status of application. The step is in the right direction and will certainly improve the India’s ease of doing business ranks,” he said.