JAMMU: Union Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), V. Srinivas, who is heading a central task force for achieving compliance reduction and deregulations for J&K including several other States/UTs, today delineated certain priority areas to be focused for reducing overall compliance burden and making deregulations to ensure simplification of government procedures for its citizens.
The meeting was chaired by Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo and attended by ACS, Jal Shakti Department; Principal Secretary, Home; Commissioner Secretary, H&UDD; Commissioner Secretary, Forests; Commissioner Secretary, I&C, Secretary, PWD; Secretary, Labour & Employment; Secretary, Law besides other concerned officers.
During the meeting, the Union Secretary while highlighting the significance of this aspect remarked that for the first time, Union Secretaries have been tasked to liaison between States/UTs and Central government for achieving the targets set under this reform programme, being personally overseen by the Prime Minister himself.
He maintained that each of the areas deserves a proper thought process with making proposals and giving feedback about their current status and implementation of the identified reforms in a time-bound manner. He added that five sections with their own priority and sub-priority areas had been documented for self-assessment of each State/UT to give their feedback and plan of implementation. He made out that the last five years had been phenomenal for J&K in implementing several reforms which had been unprecedented in its history.
While elucidating, the Union Secretary said that the first section involving Land Use has its 4 priority and 11 sub-priority areas to be focused upon. He emphasised upon creation of GIS databank for available industrial land and its integration with India Industrial Land Bank.
He revealed that, similarly, the Building and Construction impregnates 4 priority and 4 sub-priority areas. Besides, the Labour section has 6 priority areas and 5 sub-priority areas. In addition, there are 3 overarching priority areas also to be looked into. He urged for taking steps to amend building regulations to reduce land loss in commercial plots besides that of Floor Area Ratio (FAR), parking space, and minimum plot area for commercial plots.
Regarding priorities set under the Labour section, Srinivas urged the administration to remove prohibitions on women from working in certain ‘hazardous’ industries and allow them to take night-time employment in all occupations.
As far as the section on ‘Utilities & Permissions’ is concerned, simplification of renewal of Factory License/Trade License and online registration under the Shops & Establishments Act was stressed upon. In addition, expediting electricity and water connections, through an online system for application submission, payment and status tracking was asked to be focussed upon.
For achieving overall efficiency and improvement on the ground, the Union Secretary supported the introduction of State Level Acts similar to the Jan Vishwas Act. He stressed on bringing all state-level services into a State Single Window System, linking it to the National Single Window System (NSWS) without any delay.
He also demonstrated the data on an average number of days of delays in the state for 13 services compared to the national average. He asked for identifying the gaps and taking measures to address the same at the earliest.
In his remarks, the Chief Secretary reiterated the significance of this reforms-oriented programme. He directed for making of a roadmap for full implementation of all the relevant reforms by the 8th of April this year clearly fixing timelines for each priority area after due consultations with the stakeholders.
He further asked for making analysis about the amendments or changes to be made in rules, and regulations for their decriminalization as envisaged here by sticking to these priority areas relevant to us exclusively.
Dulloo also urged the concerned 12 departments to extend full cooperation to the Industries & Commerce Department, which is the Nodal Department, for its implementation in determining the roadmap besides the Law Department for effecting the necessary legal changes as per our priorities. He reaffirmed that the roles and responsibilities of each Department should be accounted for clearly in this respect.
The Chief Secretary asked to look into the working of the Single Window System to ensure end-to-end digitisation of services offered through this platform. He designated the Secretary of Labour & Employment as the nodal officer to analyse the same and frame a report about the gaps, if any, and the way forward for devising it as per the set priorities.
Commissioner Secretary, I&C, Vikramjit Singh, apprised of the current status of reforms taken under the Business Reform Action Plan and Reducing Compliance Burden. He gave out that the programmes were fully implemented by the UT besides becoming the first UT to integrate our Single Window System with the National Single Window portal.
The other administrative heads also informed the Union Secretary about the status of reforms taken in the past and their plan for implementation of other priority/sub-priority areas.
