Recommendations of Ajay Shankar Committee on Replacing Multiple Prior Permissions

Government-constituted expert committee to examine the Possibility of Replacing Multiple Prior Permissions with Pre-Existing Regulatory Mechanism has submitted its recommendations.
The 11 member committee was headed by Ajay Shanka, Former Secretary of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
Key Recommendations

• Introduction of credible third-party certification in most areas of regulation to cut down on multiple permissions needed by investors.
• Adopting global best practices for emission norms in order to promote ease of doing business in the country.
• Need for a standing institutional mechanism within the government for an independent regulatory impact assessment.
• For start-ups: Steps like Greenfield development and earmarking of mixed land use redevelopment should be undertaken.
• Start-ups must be exempted from the requirement of seeking building plan approvals would give a boost to the ecosystem.
• Any inspection of a start-up in cases of actionable complaints should be done only with the permission of an officer at a sufficiently higher level.
• Environmental Issues: Ministries of environmentally sensitive sectors should join with the Ministry of Environment and Forests to prepare a 20 year perspective geographical plan.
• This plan must indicate preferred locations in prioritised categories for their anticipated projects in order to minimise the negative impact of environment.

Background
The expert committee was constituted by DIPP in April 2015. It was tasked to (i) examine the possibility of replacing multiple prior permissions with a pre-existing regulatory mechanism. (ii) Recommend a framework of the proposed regulatory mechanism and draft proposed legislation. (iii) Identify safeguards for replacing the system of prior permission and integrating them in the proposed regulatory mechanism.

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2016