Measures to reduce compliance burden have multiplier effect on ease of doing business, says Piyush Goyal

All efforts and measures to reduce compliance burden by means of simplification, elimination and decriminalisation of several laws can have a transformative impact and multiplier effect on ease of doing business, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday.

He said reduction of compliance burden is about trust in every business, person and citizen.

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"Reduction of compliances which include simplification of compliances, elimination of several compliances, decriminalisation of several laws...Collectively when you look at it, it can have a transformative impact and there is a multiplier effect on the ease of doing business," he said at the National Workshop On Reducing Compliance Burden here.

In the last seven years, several such measures have been taken due to which there is an improvement in competitiveness, innovation, and ease of doing business.

Secretary in Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Anurag Jain said all the reforms related to compliance burden were put in four different buckets - simplification, rationalisation, digitisation and decriminalisation.

"By June 2021, almost 23,000 processes have been put in these four buckets. So 23,000 reforms have happened out of those 70,000 odd which were listed out (by a third party)," he said.

To reduce these burdens, every ministry, department and states were asked to conduct a comprehensive review of compliances under their purview to understand their relevance and rationale and undertake a complete process re-engineering to eliminate burdensome compliances.

The objective set for this comprehensive exercise was to improve ease of living and ease of doing business by simplifying, rationalizing, digitizing and decriminalizing government to business and citizen interfaces across all ministries/departments and states/UTs.

This is being done by a four-pronged strategy, including elimination of compliance burden, digitization: creation of online interfaces and decriminalisation of certain laws.

According to a progress report on reduction of compliance burden, released by the minister, the Centre is focused on decriminalization of minor offences to remove fear of prosecution for law abiding corporates and boost investment.

Total 46 penal provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 have been decriminalized.

Citing an example, it said the coal ministry is in the process of reviewing 10 more rules to be considered for abolition under Coal Mines (Conservation and Development) Act, 1974 and Coal Mines (Conservation and Development) Rules, 1975 and Department of Land Resources has also proposed to repeal Land Acquisition (Mines) Act.