New Companies Bill to make doing business easier: Sachin Pilot

NEW DELHI: The new Companies Bill has certain provisions like faster registration through fully electronic MCA-21 and allowing firms to hold meetings through e-governance mode, that would "facilitate ease of doing business in India", the Parliament was informed on Monday.


"The Companies Bill, 2013 which has been passed by the Parliament incorporates certain important provisions...to facilitate ease of doing business in India," Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

Moreover, the Bill empowers firms to function in a manner which is 'self-regulated with disclosure/transparency' rather than 'government/regulatory approval based regime', Pilot said.

The Bill recognises concepts of 'One Person Company' and 'Small Company' to allow new entrepreneurs to take advantage of corporate form of business, he added.

It also permits faster mergers and acquisitions including short form of merger and cross border mergers, time bound approvals through 'National Company Law Tribunal' and a summary liquidation process for a class of companies.

To a query on whether the Damodaran panel has submitted its report on improving the business climate to the government, Pilot said: "The Chairman of the Committee has circulated the draft report for comments, if any by August 26, 2013,"

"The report will be submitted to the government soon thereafter," he added.

Chaired by capital market regulator Sebi's former chief M Damodaran, the panel was set up in August 2012 amid concerns among industry and investors, about perception of policy paralysis and lack of required economic reforms.