To boost ease of doing business, cabinet approves amendments to companies law

NEW DELHI: To improve the ease of doing business, the Cabinet today approved amendments to the companies law that do away with a mandatory declaration by a firm before commencing business.

The changes have also been cleared to fast-track the approval process for draft notifications aimed at granting exemptions from various provisions of the Companies Act.

The amendments were approved at a meeting of Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi this morning, and are now part of the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2014.

The amendments include "doing away with the requirement for filing a declaration by a company before commencement of business or exercising its borrowing powers".

Besides, they will rationalise "the procedure for laying draft notifications granting exemptions to various classes of companies or modifying provisions of the Act in Parliament, in order to ensure speedier issue of final notifications," an official release said.

"These Official Amendments will address issues related to ease of doing business and put in place a speedier process for approval of draft notifications for providing exemptions etc from specific provisions of the Act to a class of companies," the Corporate Affairs Ministry said.

The government has said it wants to improve India's position to top-50 in terms of ease of doing business, from 142nd currently, as per the latest World Bank report in this regard.

A number of changes have already been proposed in the Companies Act in the recent months.