Harish Palaniappan's

Come April 2006, and the "Company Affairs Ministry" in India will be launching a e-governance portal which is part of launches in one of the phases of a e-governance project going on for years.

The project was started years back (I don't really remember), but finally looks like the most important phase of the project is set to completion and they are launching it soon.

The union minister of company affairs though announced only one advantage of the new system, (there must definitely be many other obvious things coming into shape with the new system.. .. politicians here will take time to change).

"You can register your company online, pay the registration fee online, and that reduces the time of registration of a new indian company from the earlier 168 hours to 42 hrs".. they said something like this.

I really don't know what they meant by 168 and 42.. but definitely to register a new indian company (without bribing anybody), you will take months. Government offices in India work on only one logic bribe-oriented execution.. In my experience there has never ever been an occassion where I could get something done from a government office employee without bribing him/her, though what we ask them to do is their normal job for which they are employed. Even the fellow who distributes company registration forms in local centres, actually sells it for Rs.25/-... I later found out that the form was actually meant to be given FREE as per norms.

Considering such a tradition of Government offices, especially the 'bureaucracy' (gentle term often used in India in sense of 'delay due to lesser bribes'), its very nice to hear they still have this e-governance project (without dumping it after years realizing money out of it like the way all projects are generally handled by the government).

BottomLine: Hopefully, after April 2006, the system works and people have success registering their businesses easily.

Definitely there are lot of businesses in india which are not registered. And I feel the government woke up on this only because the new system would generate more leads to realize taxes from previously unregistered businesses... And not for any reason like helping dismantle bureaucracy.. not yet.. not yet. India will take another 30 years .. becos all those oldies who are holding the stick of bureaucracy have to die which should take 30 yrs for a 50 yr old government employee to leave (us) in 'peace'.