TN e-Governance Agency to integrate regulatory agencies on single portal

The nodal agency, which has been supporting and driving all the state’s e-Governance initiatives, will integrate the processes followed by the agencies such as the Electricity Board and Pollution Control Board to expedite the regulatory approvals and bring in more accountability, an industry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told DTNext.

Ever since the state slipped in the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking, released before the demonetisation drive became a debatable topic nationally, the government machinery has been on the overdrive. “We have expressed our concerns to the Centre on finding repetitiveness in many of the parameters used for rank evaluation. We have also participated in the discussions revolving around this matter,” the official said, calling for more legal scrutiny of the Single Window clearances. 

Citing the example of certain activities that required physical evaluation, which meant that every aspect involving business could not be digitised (inspection of an area cannot be done only through remote satellite imaging systems), he said, “it is not as if the agencies do not follow the processes but having to record that on a specified portal alone does not show the true picture.  Our aim is to make the agencies do their job in a time-bound manner and by integrating them on to a single portal, data representation will be far more authentic.”

Despite having a good industrial climate and topping the Foreign Direct Investments chart, the state has not been able to highlight or “market” its competitive strengths unlike other states. The Single Window function is “woefully” understaffed and the evaluation parameters used for the ranking do not reflect the ground realities unlike some states that were even known to capitalise on projects that bore only the “deemed to be approved” status, says the official. He, however, agreed that the ongoing pain points for investors typically revolved around labour, power and other regulatory approvals.