Government of India has already put a step forward in the direction of its two famous projects namely ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’. On 22nd July, 2015, Ministry of Commerce & Industry released press information regarding the integration of 14 services with the e-biz portal. Yes, now businesses in India can avail of these 14 services online, hassle free. It would also encourage more and more businesses to crop up in India who were refraining from coming into the limelight fearing the complex web of prolonged procedures to start and establish a business in India.
Such businesses always wanted to register themselves but could not spare extra time and incur high cost involved in doing business in the previous environment. With services going online, process will be quick and cost of doing business will be lower. It would also attract foreign investments to flow in India since the online process will be much simple as compared to the previous procedure of doing business in India from start to end.
As per the Press Information Bureau, following are the 14 services of Central Government introduced to e-biz portal and can also be found by following this link:
| S. No. | Ministry/ Dept. Name | Service Name |
| 1 | Ministry of Corporate Affairs | Name Availability |
| 2 | Ministry of Corporate Affairs | Director Identification Number |
| 3 | Ministry of Corporate Affairs | Certificate of Incorporation |
| 4 | Ministry of Corporate Affairs | Commencement of Business |
| 5 | Central Board of Direct Taxes | Issue of Permanent Account Number (PAN) |
| 6 | Central Board of Direct Taxes | Issue of Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN) |
| 7 | Reserve Bank of India | Advanced Foreign Remittance (AFR) |
| 8 | Reserve Bank of India | Foreign Collaboration-General Permission Route (FC-GPR) |
| 9 | Employees’ Provident Fund Organization | Employer Registration |
| 10 | Employee’s State Insurance Corporation | Employer Registration |
| 11 | Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization | Issue of Explosive License |
| 12 | Directorate General of Foreign Trade | Importer Exporter Code License |
| 13 | Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion | Industrial License |
| 14 | Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion | Industrial Entrepreneur Memorandum |
As stated in the Press release, besides applying to these 14 services, an option is also made available to business community on eBiz portal to apply through Composite Application Form and make one-time payment for obtaining ‘Company Incorporation’ from Ministry of Corporate Affairs; ‘Permanent Account Number (PAN)’ & ‘Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN)’ from Central Board of Direct Taxes; and ‘Employer Registration’ from Employees’ State Insurance Corporation and Employees Provident Fund Organisation.
The GOI aims to integrate more services each year to cover the entire lifecycle of a business from incorporation to dissolution and ultimately closure. This step of integrating 14 services with the e-biz portal was seen as the first phase. We may say that the GOI is attracting ‘Make in India’ through its ‘Digital India’ project since the focus is primarily on the ease of doing business in India. E-biz platform would provide prompt and effective ways of doing business in India.
In addition to above 14 services, 12 Central Government services have been identified for integration with eBiz portal. The integration activities have commenced and these services are at various stages of integration.
List of 12 Central Government services under integration process:
| S.No. | Service | Department/ Ministry |
| 1 | Approval from Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) | Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance |
| 2 | Annual Filing of Company Returns | Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) |
| 3 | Constitution of the Firm- Partnership/ LLP Company | Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) |
| 4 | Application for Environment Clearance | Ministry of Environment and Forest & Climate Change (MoEF) |
| 5 | Approval for diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes under section – 2 of the forest (conservation) act, 1980 | Ministry of Environment and Forest & Climate Change (MoEF) |
| 6 | Issue of Import Export license of goods for Restricted items | Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) |
| 7 | Changes or correction in PAN data | Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) |
| 8 | Issue of custom duty concession certificate to entrepreneurs under project import scheme | Department of Heavy Industry (DHI) |
| 9 | Registration under the Contract Labour Act, 1970 | Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoL&E) |
| 10 | Registration under the Building and other construction workers Act, 1996 | Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoL&E) |
| 11 | Registration under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 | Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoL&E) |
| 12 | Issuance of EM part-1 and part-2 | Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MoMSME) |
So, we may say that with the execution of the first phase of integration of services with the e-biz portal, work of second phase is already in the pipeline. Thus, we can expect some great transformation in the way of doing business in India in the coming years. We should welcome this step of GOI positively and try to support it in every way that we can.
