Commerce ministry, DPIIT to seek stakeholder feedback through videoconferencing portal

Commerce and industry minister asks states to learn from each others best practices to attract businesses

The government will launch a portal for the commerce ministry and the Department for the Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)  initially to reduce physical interactions and seek stakeholder feedback via online videoconferencing to boost transparency, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on September 5.

The platform, to be launched on September 13, will have a video link where stakeholders can interact with representatives of the government.

“We are starting an open video link for all stakeholders so they don't have to visit the ministry or department. They can log their grievances,” Goyal said at Udyog Samagam 2024, the ministers of the states’ industries meet, on September 5.

Goyal noted that the platform is expected to reduce instances of corruption as it will eliminate physical interactions and route all meetings via videoconferencing, which will be archived.

“We will also have the senior-most official on this platform,” Goyal stated.

The remarks come as the government has been urging states to adopt the national single-window clearance platform.

“Red carpet should not be a story but a reality,” Goyal pointed out.

Currently, the national single-window system has 31 of the 36 states and Union territories on board. Manipur and Mizoram are some of the states that are yet to sign up to the platform.

“We need to keep our promises and deliver them in a time-bound manner,” Goyal said, highlighting that states could not attract investment if corruption were not rooted out of the system.

The government also launched the Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) rankings for 2022 and awarded 19 states for exceptional performance across various parameters.

Goyal also urged the states to reduce the compliance burden for businesses and for faster implementation of new labour laws.

The minister further said that states needed to prioritise the ease of doing business and do away with obsolete laws.

He said that states needed to learn from best practices to further their industrial policies.

The BRAP rankings uses some of the same methodology followed by World Bank's Business Ready or B-READY index, which the international financial institution will use as a successor to the ease of doing business ranking, which was shut in 2021 owing to concerns of irregularities in the 2018 and 2020 editions.

"We have aligned our B-READY framework with that of the World Bank," a senior official noted.