Ministries Debate on Ways to Reduce Compliance Burden, Workshop Discusses Single Solutions

· Workshop witnesses wide participation from States, Central Ministries, Industry Associations and Industry Representatives

As part of Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav, Government of India is observing Good Governance Week from 20^th to 25^th December 2021. In the Good Governance Week, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, organized a National Workshop on next Phase of Reforms for Reducing Compliance Burden on 22^nd December 2021 at Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi.

Workshop witnessed wide participation from States, Central Ministries, Industry Associations and Industry Representatives. More than 100 representatives from 27 States/UTs, more than 200 members from Central Ministries, Departments and subordinate organizations and 95 representatives from Industry Associations participated in deliberations of the Workshop.

Context of the workshop was set in the opening session wherein DPIIT made a short presentation on overview of the exercise of reducing compliance burden, status of compliances reduced, initiatives implemented by Ministries and States/UTs to reduce compliance burden on citizens and businesses and next steps of the exercise.

To understand views and seek suggestions from stakeholders, workshop included 3 Breakout Sessions on following themes- Breaking Silos and Enhancing Synergies among Government Departments, Chaired by Shri B.V.R Subrahmanyam, Secretary D/o Commerce. The key points discussed during this session are possibilities of issuance of Master Certificate listing all registrations, merging key business identity numbers into single ID, integration of State Single Window Systems with Central Ministries/Departments, etc.

Single Sign-on for Efficient Delivery of Citizen Services, Chaired by Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary MeitY. The main points discussed during this session are considering integration of all Citizen services at Central and State services on the National Single Sign-On, possibility of UMANG to be the National Single Sign-on (SSO) mobile application along with www.india.gov.in as the National Single Sign-On Webpage

Effective Grievance Redressal, Chaired by Secretary D/o Land Resources. The key points which were deliberated are multiple platforms for raising grievances need to use technology to ensure that the complaints are genuine, use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for predictive analysis and data filtration

During the concluding session of the workshop, core issues were identified and next steps on respective themes of the Breakout Sessions were presented by respective Chair Secretaries.

Cabinet Secretary acknowledged the efforts put in by Ministries and States/UTs to reduce compliance burden in earlier phase and making life easier for citizens of this country. He added that reducing burdensome compliances is a continuous process. Various policy reforms and programs have been implemented over last few years, however, Ministries and States/UTs need to identify what more can be done. Transformational governance reforms in the 75^th year of the country’s Independence would go a long way in unshackling businesses and citizens.