Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Rajesh Kumar Singh
The government is looking at ways to speed up the approval process for foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals, said the Secretary of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). Rajesh Kumar Singh said on Thursday. In a post-budget interview, Singh said Shreya Nandi that the funding channel should improve, with the abolition of the controversial tax on angel investors. Edited extracts:
The Budget talks about simplifying foreign direct investment rules. What changes can we expect?
We are currently looking into improving the processes. There is a three-month standard operating procedure (SOP) for taking a decision on approval of FDI proposals through the government route. In many cases, including the DPIIT, this is not being followed. Sometimes, the ministries involved do not send their inputs on time (which delays the process). The idea is to take decisions more quickly. An (existing) online portal will be used to flag delays.
How about further liberalization of the FDI limit in certain sectors?
No decision has been taken. There are some residual sectors, such as news broadcasting. However, there is no consensus. Nor have there been any initial consultations.
How can abolishing the angel tax help startups?
The startup ecosystem is excited and feels that the funding winter is going to end. Venture capitalists, high net worth individuals and foreign investors, all those who were hesitant to invest in startups due to the compliance burden of having to pay the tax, will be a bit more open-minded. In that sense, the funding pipeline should improve.
What is the roadmap for Jan Vishwas 2.0 and Business Reforms Action Plans (BRAPs) announced in the Budget?
We are trying to identify as many provisions as we can. We are trying to work with other government departments to get a reasonable amount (of compliance burdens) so that it is worth introducing a bill on this. For BRAP 2024, the methodology and the indicated list of approximately 280 questions have been shared with the states. We have received feedback from the states. BRAP will be published next year.
What has been the progress in the disbursement of incentives under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, now that a quarterly payment system has been approved?
In many sectors, a quarterly disbursement system has been put in place, except in a few, such as food processing, where it is not feasible. The disbursement cycle (from annual to quarterly) has been changed recently. As of the end of May, the (cumulative) disbursement (for PLI beneficiaries) has been about Rs 9,721 crore. Investment is over Rs 1.28 trillion, sales Rs 10.8 trillion, employment is 850,000 and exports Rs 4 trillion. What matters is investment, sales and employment. Disbursement is done ex post and may take some time.
There have been concerns about the performance of project management agencies (PMAs)…
Some standard operating procedures have been finalised for the MPAs, based on the best performing MPAs. More importantly, the idea was to make them aware that they are not like government departments, but their job is to sit with the beneficiaries and facilitate the disbursement cycle. I am confident that the processing of applications will be faster.
First published: July 25, 2024 | 20:36 IS
Disclaimer:
The information contained in this post is for general information purposes only. We make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the post for any purpose.
We respect the intellectual property rights of content creators. If you are the owner of any material featured on our website and have concerns about its use, please contact us. We are committed to addressing any copyright issues promptly and will remove any material within 2 days of receiving a request from the rightful owner.