Calling this a “visible impact of e-governance”, a company affairs ministry official said the number of annual returns filed in 2006-07 was 3.14 lakh compared with 2.21 lakh in the year before. The number of filings through the electronic mode has been 18.33 million so far. Over 44,000 new companies registered themselves online and over 5 lakh director identification numbers have been issued.
Significantly, the “new-look RoCs” have been able to deregister the defunct companies at a greater pace. Cases of about 1.8 lakh likely defunct firms have already been processed. “We think names of 50,000 companies could be struck off from records in the next three-four months,” said the official.
Defunct companies have been adding to the regulatory burden while RoCs should have focused on large and operating firms. Most of the 20 RoC offices have been modernised under the new-look RoC project. The infrastructure has improved.
Better compliance has also resulted in generation of larger revenue by the company affairs ministry. Receipts in ’06-07 stood at Rs 1,026 crore as against Rs 728 crore in the previous year, a 40% jump. The workforce deployed by RoCs for enforcement was doubled from 100 in ’05-06 to 200 in ’06-07. Number of personnel for prosecution and for attending public grievances have also been substantially increased.
The functioning of official liquidators has also been improved as part of the regulatory-cum-administrative revamp exercise. It may be noted that to cut huge delays in insolvency and liquidation proceedings, the new company law in the making will bring in norms in compliance with the best in the world.
The new law, the draft of which is being finalised by the company affairs ministry in consultation with the law ministry, will also vest more powers with RoCs to enable them to function effectively in the globalising corporate world.
Quelle/Source: The Economic Times, 08.05.2007
