eBiz portal: An initiative worth supporting

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Bikky Khosla | 28 Jan, 2014
How many of you have registered with the eBiz portal? The government launched the first phase of this project in January 2013 with an aim to help investors and businesses assess licence and permit requirements for setting up and operating a business in the country. Last week, the second phase of this project was launched by Commerce Minister Anand Sharma who claimed that eBiz was an important step towards leveraging technology to bring transparency, improve efficiency and promote convenience. Is this platform really serving this purpose?

The platform claims to allow you to get information about the licenses, clearances and registrations applicable to a business based on its unique characteristics. There is a 'License and Permit Information' wizard and when I tried it out and followed the instructions it informed about 18 required licenses and permits and 17 required filings and payments. Of course, these numbers are big, but the ease at which the lists are generated is helpful. Earlier, one had to run from pillar to post or browse scores of websites to get such information.

The website mentions about 22 services, including eight Central Government Services: Issue of Industrial Entrepreneur Memorandum, Issue of Industrial License, Filing for Employees Provident Fund, Issue of PAN, Filing of Returns by Companies (Form 1), Tax Deduction Account Number of Income Tax Dept, Excise Tax Registration (Form R-1) and Service Tax Registration (Form ST-1), and the remaining 14 services comprise some state specific services. A registered member can apply online for the requisite licenses, clearances and registrations and payment can be made via an integrated electronic payment gateway.

Overall a lot of things are good and we can expect that the portal will get better in the coming days. The government aims at making a large number of services related to Andhra Pradesh single window services available during the third phase and then the next phase would set ground for launch of services pertaining to Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Haryana, along with integration with additional PSU banks. It is expected that at the end of a six-year period, the project will expand to cover the whole country and provide over 200 G2B services, as well as other value added services.

However, I think success of any such project largely depends on participation by the small and medium enterprises spread across the country, and therefore awareness creation holds the key. Otherwise this project will meet the same fate as the MSME schemes about most of which thousands of businesses and would be entrepreneurs are still unaware. At the same time, it is also important that business owners keep their eyes open on such developments. There is a clear information gap and we all must all try to bridge it in order to create a more friendly business ecosystem.

Do check this portal out -- ebiz.gov.in. Is it really helpful, are you satisfied with how things are being done, what are the issues and obstacles, what improvement do you want to see? Do share your opinion with us.