Maharashtra: Unnecessary stalling of files will land babus in soup

Cracking the whip on errant babus, who keep sitting on files to grant consents to industries, which in turn holds up investment in Maharashtra, the state government has begun sending officials to department and offices where such cases are pending. Errant bureaucrats have action being recommended against them.

Senior state industries department officials admit that despite the government’s focus on facilitating investments to promote employment generation and growth, the message had not percolated to the ground.

As part of its drive to promote ease of doing business for its Make in Maharashtra agenda to promote manufacturing, the government has launched the MAITRI (Maharashtra Industry, Trade and Investment Facilitation Cell) to facilitate business and assist investors.

Officials said that for the first time, they were deputing officials to pursue cases and grievances received on the MAITRI platform which are not resolved despite repeated follow ups. This hand-holding exercise will help unlock investments.

“We have appointed SICOM and are sending officers on field visits... to tackle specific cases,” Maharashtra principal secretary (industries) Apurva Chandra told dna, adding that these staffers tried to find out why the consents were pending, sometimes as long as a year or two in various offices like those of tehsildars and the sub-divisional officers. They also facilitated clearances.

“This is proving to be helpful,” said Chandra, adding that they first tried to get things done via emails and phone calls and opted for field visits when these measures failed to generate any response.

“We have also recommended action in some cases,” he noted, adding that some consents which were tough to come by included permissions for converting farm land to non-agriculture purposes, change in land use and permissions for controlled blasting.

“Now, these issues are getting resolved. They have a forum to showcase their grievances,” said Chandra, adding that around 20 such field visits had taken place so far with applications on the MAITRI platform being given a personal hearing.

Of the over 400 cases which have been registered on MAITRI so far, about 150 have been resolved, including those on which field visits have been conducted.

“If an official is refusing to grant permissions for months it shows sheer lethargy, non-commitment or something else,” a senior official said, adding that the message was yet to percolate to the ground.

“Officers from around 16 departments have started providing services at MAITRI,” said Chandra, adding that more departments would complete the process soon.

To ensure time-bound delivery of services, the state government has also brought permissions granted to industries under the Right to Services Act. The Maharashtra Right to Public Services Act, 2015, approved by the state government seeks to provide for the delivery of transparent, efficient and timely public services to eligible people in Maharashtra to ensure good governance.

Despite the BJP-Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra government claiming to have attracted Rs7.94 lakh crore worth investments in the Make in India week, statistics reveal that few of them make it from the drawing board stage to actual commissioning on the ground. In around two-and-half decades, just around 45% industrial proposals have been commissioned.

“Since August, 1991 to October, 2015, in all 19,053 industrial proposals with an investment of Rs 10,97,337 crore were approved. Out of these, 8,497 projects (44.6%) with an investment of Rs 2,62,631 crore (23.9%) with proposed employment of 11.24 lakh were commissioned and 2,108 projects with an investment of Rs 87,701 crore and proposed employment of 3.98 lakh are under execution,” noted the Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2015-16.