Telangana Penalty for delaying the projects

Hyderabad: The Telangana government is all set to bring in a “Right to Single Window Services” ordinance for investors, which will make the concerned officials liable for suspension and penalty if clearances for industrial projects are not given in 15 days.

Their increments and salaries will be cut and the amount thus collected will be paid to the respective investors as compensation for the delay.

At present, an investor has to obtain nearly 30 approvals from various departments to set up an industry and the average time to clear the files ranges from two to five years and more. Several proposals that were submitted during the last Partnership Summit held in Hyderabad in January 2012 are still pending.

Though Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao wants to bring the Act in the Legislative Assembly, it has been kept on hold due to delay in convening the Assembly session. To overcome this, the government is planning to take the ordinance route to ensure that the “investor-friendly norms” come into force at the earliest. Under the new system, the CM himself will handover nearly 30 approvals to investors.

The Telangana CMO will pursue the files cleared by the Chief Minister with all the departments in 15 days. Probably for the first time in the country that such an Act is being planned to check delay and graft in clearing investment proposals.

The aim behind the ordinance is that the Telangana government is planning to conduct a "Partnership Summit" by inviting industrialists from all the major countries and states in late-December or early-January and it wants to showcase that the state has the world's best single window clearance system wherein officials will be taken to task if approvals are delayed under one pretext or the other or if they resort to any kind of corruption to grant approvals.

Mr Chandrasekhar Rao has been spending several hours every day since Saturday to draft the ordinance with officials of the Industries department. Legal department officials have also been involved in the exercise to ensure that enough precautions are taken to see that the ordinance does not invite legal problems for the government.

After holding meetings with officials on Saturday and Sunday, KCR on Monday invited representatives of industry bodies like CII, FICCI and FAPCCI for their inputs on the ordinance.

He is learnt to have told industry representatives that he had promised the world's best single window clearance system to top industrialists like Mr Ratan Tata, Mr Azim Premji, Mr Anil Ambani, Mr Satya Nadella, Mr G. Mallikarjuna Rao and others and their expectations should be met at any cost and asked them to give inputs on how to achieve this goal.

The industry representatives sought a week’s time to give their feedback on the ordinance to which the CM agreed. Mr Rao told them that all appropriate inputs given by them would be incorporated in the ordinance, which is expected to be issued any time before Diwali.

Box:

How approvals are getting delayed for long?

In the existing method, investors have to approach nearly 30 government departments to secure approvals. The prominent being No Objection Certificates from the Pollution Control Board, department of Forests and Environment, Fire Services besides approvals from Roads and Buildings, HMDA, GHMC, Water Board, Electricity department etc. There is no specific timeframe to clear these proposals and it takes two to five years and more.

The normal practice being adopted by officials to delay proceedings is by keeping files pending with them under one pretext or the other till the last minute and then issue notices pointing out deficiencies and seek rectifications.

After coming out with rectifications, they raise few more queries and seek explanations. It goes on and on till investors succumb to their demands for bribes.

Big MNCs like Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson etc. too were the victims of red tape and could not launch operations in Mahabubnagar till recently though the proposals had been submitted nearly two years ago.

In fact, these MNCs took up the issue with CM KCR who was invited to launch the projects two weeks ago.

They complained that the R&B department and HMDA had harassed them by not giving approvals and had demanded up to Rs 5 crore to provide connecting roads to their units.

In the public meeting held at the project site, KCR had remarked, "I came to know that the R&B and other departments had harassed you and two others MNCs. I know the officers who have done it. It's not good. I regret what has happened. It will not be repeated. We will soon have world’s No 1 industrial policy and single window system. A Bill is ready and will be passed in the ensuing Budget session. I was told that some officials demanded Rs 4-5 crore for providing connecting roads to MNCs. Stop such things immediately. Ours is a new state. We need investors to provide jobs for the youth."