Shri Piyush Goyal has launched a national single-window system for investors and businesses

“The launch of the National Single Window System is a big step forward towards making India Aatmanirbhar,” Shri Piyush Goyal stated at the facility’s launch.

Shri Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Commerce, Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, and Public Distribution, stated that NSWS will usher in Azadi, from the tradition of rushing to government offices for clearances and registrations. He stated that throughout the 75-week “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav,” we will be able to share “Azadi ka Amrit” with investors and MSMEs from all over the world. As stated by the Minister

Azadi from the tradition of running to government offices, i.e. Ease of conducting business and Ease of living Azadi from paperwork, duplication, and information asymmetry Azadi from Windows within Windows

PM Modi’s strong and courageous leadership, according to the Minister, has enabled and encouraged India to dream greater.

His vision has become our purpose for the growth of the nation and the prosperity of millions of people. For a long time, there has been a need for a single national interface between industry and government.

Shri Goyal, speaking at the event, stated that this one window platform will serve as a one-stop shop for investors seeking approvals and clearances.

As of now, the portal accepts approvals from 18 central departments and nine states; by December 21, another 14 central departments and five states will have been included.

Through ‘End to End’ facilitation, Shri Goyal remarked, all solutions will be available to all with a single mouse click.

All information would be available on a single dashboard, bringing transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to the ecosystem. To apply, track, and reply to questions, an applicant dashboard would be available.

Know Your Approval (KYA), Common Registration & State Registration Form, Document Repository, and E-Communication are just a few of the services available.

According to Shri Goyal, India today attracts the world’s attention, and the entire world is waiting to India to rise and seize its rightful place as an economic superpower. In Q1FY22, GDP increased by more than 20%, while exports increased by 45.17 percent compared to July. Aug 2020 Record FDI investment of $81.72 billion in 2020, with $ 22.53 billion inflow in the first three months of this FY-2X w.r.t. Same period in 2020 Recently,  In the last six years, India has risen 35 places to 46th position on the GII.

We are again on course to become one of the fastest rising large economies, he remarked, thanks to a strong recovery. In the same context as the other transformative and nation-building programmes launched in the last seven years,

NSWS, according to the Minister, will strengthen other initiatives such as Make in India, Startup India, and the PLI programme etc.

It should be emphasised that boosting India’s business climate is one of the government’s main priorities. The government has lately introduced various programmes, including the flagship Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) and the India Industrial Land Bank System, to reinforce its commitment to “Make in India, Make for the World.” The PLI programmes have been announced for 13 sectors, with a total investment of USD 27 billion, and are expected to produce global manufacturing champions for an Atmanirbhar Bharat.

The ambitious Investment Clearance Cell (ICC), proposed by the Finance Minister in the Union Budget Speech 2020, is one such critical initiative. The Finance Minister proposes to establish an Investment Clearance Cell (ICC) during the presentation of Budget 2020-21, which will provide “end to end” facilitation and support to investors, including pre-investment advisory, land bank information, and clearances at the Centre and State levels. It was proposed that the cell be run through an online digital interface.

Following that, DPIIT and Invest India began the process of establishing the portal as a National Single Window System (NSWS), which will give a single platform for investors, entrepreneurs, and enterprises in India to find and get the permissions and clearances they require.

Investors face information asymmetry, duplication of information given across platforms and authorities, and inefficient tracking of approvals and registrations, which the system is designed to resolve.

Central agencies and states, particularly those with effective Single Window Systems, were consulted extensively. In addition, consultations with industry associations, professional bodies, and legal firms were held to better understand what the envisioned one window system would represent. The creation of Ministry-specific information dockets including corresponding approvals and registrations, as well as relevant trigger conditions and rules, followed. Each ministry underwent a thorough review and validation process to verify that the National Single Window System covered all essential approvals and registrations.

While the stakeholders carried out this effort, Invest India designed the overall technology architecture for a system that could be scaled across Ministries and States. Invest India began creating the system after evaluating and selecting technology implementation partners.

The Know Your Approval module was accessible for feedback from industry organisations in January 2021. Meanwhile, Ministries and States began integrating fundamental NSWS modules for seamless information interchange. It was launched in July 2021 after feedback was included into the KYA module. While considerable testing and trials were conducted to ensure NSWS’s resilience and interaction with Central Departments and States.

NSWS has been designed keeping the needs of entrepreneurs and investors at the center.

The NSWS offers the following online services:

• Know Your Approval (KYA) Service: an intelligent information wizard that provides a list of permissions that any company needs to start up. It accomplishes this by posing a series of dynamic questions to the investor about their intended business operations and determining the necessary approvals based on the answers provided. On the surface, the questionnaire appears to be straightforward and user-friendly, but it has a complicated, automated logic that sieve through hundreds of approvals and shortlists just those that are relevant to the specific investor or entrepreneur. On July 21, 2021, this service was introduced with over 500 approvals from 32 central departments and over 2000 approvals from 14 states.

This service is provided solely for informational reasons and is not intended to provide legal advice.

• Common Registration Form: A unified information capturing system, as well as a common registration form, has been implemented to enable a single point of submission of information and documents across Ministries and States. On forms, information is auto-populated, so you don’t have to fill it in again.
• State registration form: Allows investors to access their state’s single window system with a single click.
• Applicant dashboard: Provides a single web interface for applying for approvals and registrations across ministries and states, as well as tracking and responding to queries.
• Document repository: An online centralised storage facility for investors that allows them to submit a single document once and use it for many approvals. It is no longer necessary to submit documents to various portals.
• E-Communication module: Allows Ministries and States to respond to enquiries and clarification requests linked to web services.

The portal’s beta version has now been finished and is being made available to all stakeholders and the general public as a trial soft launch. The portal’s beta version (now in Phase I) hosts approvals from 18 federal departments and nine states, with the goal of directing investors to the list of business approvals they may want based on information they supply. By December 2021, another 14 federal departments and five states will have joined the programme (under Phase II)

Based on user and industry input, the portal will gradually accept a larger number of approvals and licences. Though Ministry/State testing is ongoing and will continue for the next three months to stabilise and enhance the platform, it is vital that substantial feedback from industry users be accommodated to ensure comprehensiveness and high utilization for Investors and Entrepreneurs.