‘Surge’ clouds hover over ease of biz?

Failure and inefficiency of local bodies may push Rajasthan lower in “ease of doing business” ranking. State government’s efforts are being neutralized by local body officials who want investors and common people to remain in limbo instead of adopting a transparent system.

Central government’s department of industrial policy and promotion and World Bank had prepared business reform action plan 2017. The state government had sent a report on implementation of reforms suggested in the plan.

However, the department of industrial policy and promotion pointed out several shortcomings. The industry department wrote a letter to all concerned departments to remove them. 

Some inadequacies were related to UDH and LSG. In the online system, applicant can see nothing by an officer on a particular file.

This is what bothering employees as it would expose their tendency of unnecessarily keeping a matter in abeyance. The central government would release final rating of states in February end leaving little time for the state government to take measure steps.

The Permission:-

Building map permission s not issued online; No computerized transparent system for spot inspection; No effective system to resolve land/construction permit dispute; No common performa for joint spot inspection report for map permission; Land use change and lan conversion not done online; Urban land records not digitalized.

The Feedback:-

Department of industrial policy and promotion has asked for list of 60 applicants who used online system for every work for which online system was proposed in business reform action plan. Department would take feedback from the applicants about their experience of online system. This feedback would play key role in deciding ranking. But, the government is not in position to provide names of 60 applicants from all local government agencies including development authorities, UITs and 191 municipal bodies.

The Online Platform:-

State govt has provided online platform to local bodies. –Building map approval, fire NOC, trade license, completion certificate and land use change can be done online; Yet many large local bodies doing these work offline; JMC taking online application for map approval but releasing offline; Udaipur Mayor has sought permission for offline map approval. –Government has issued order to appoint survey officer for spot inspection randomly; In most local bodies as per prevailing system officers designated have been doing inspection