Single Window Portal: Improving the Ease of Doing Business in Tamil Nadu for the MSMEs

Introduction

The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector is an important, highly vibrant and dynamic sector of the Indian economy as it has contributed greatly to the economic growth over the years. The MSMEs manufacture more than 6000 products, contributing about 45% to manufacturing and around 40% to exports. With its agility and dynamism, the sector has shown an admirable innovativeness and adaptability to survive the recent economic scenario. It is the MSME sector which can help realize the target of the National Manufacturing Policy of raising the share of manufacturing sector in GDP from 16% at present to 25% by the end of 2022.

MSMEs in Tamil Nadu

There has been a phenomenal growth of MSMEs in Tamil Nadu. MSMEs produce a wide variety of products in almost all sectors. The prominent among them are textile, garments, engineering products, auto components, leather products, plastics, etc. 

Around 20.13 lakh entrepreneurs have filed the Entrepreneurs’ Memorandum (EM) Acknowledgement Part-II and Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM), providing employment opportunities to about 128.91 lakh persons with a total investment of over Rs 2.23 lakh crores.

Improving the Ease of Doing Business

The Government of Tamil Nadu has enacted the Tamil Nadu Business Facilitation Act, 2018 to enhance the ease of doing business in the state. The Act provides for single point receipt of applications for securing clearances that are required to establish or expand an enterprise and for those required during the normal course of business including renewals in a time-bound manner. The Act also provides for an effective grievance redressal mechanism and fine in case of failure of Competent Authorities to act within a time frame and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

The Act covers 54 clearances which include pre-establishment, pre-operation, renewals, incentives, etc. District Industries Centres and Guidance Bureau are designated as the Nodal Agencies for MSMEs and large industries respectively for operating the single window mechanism.

The Act provides for a 3 tier institutional structure to monitor and review the progress of single window mechanism for the MSMEs:

• District MSME Single Window Committee
• State MSME Single Window Committee and
• MSME Investment Promotion and Monitoring Board.

Single Window Portal

The Commissionerate of Industries and Commerce of the Government of Tamil Nadu has taken a number of steps to improve the ease of doing business and create an investor-friendly climate in the state to promote investments in the MSME sector. The most important initiative in this regard has been to create an online Single Window Portal exclusively for the MSMEs to enable them to obtain approvals and ‘No Objection Certificates (NoCs)’ from various government departments and agencies for establishing their enterprises. It allows the MSMEs to obtain all the approvals and NoCs through a single Composite Application Form (CAF) from 12 government departments and agencies in the state including the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP), Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB), Fire Department, Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health (DISH), Public Health, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (RD&PR) and Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO). The approvals cover pre-establishment, operation and renewal stages and the entire process is completely online including payment of fees. All the departments and agencies are required to give approvals online within a defined time-frame after the complete application has been submitted. The application need not submit any paper documents and need not visit any government office in person.

The portal may be accessed at https://easybusiness.tn.gov.in/msme/.  The portal has the following features:

• Single point acceptance and electronic distribution of applications to the respective Competent Authorities without the need for applicants to physically visit the concerned offices.
• Custom generation of forms for individual Competent Authorities along with requisite attachments.
• Single point of capture of information with the feature of auto-population of data.
• Online approval by the concerned Competent Authorities and provision to download the certificate online.
• Online tracking/automatic alerts to applicants through SMS/emails.
• Customized online MIS reports for monitoring at different levels.

Online Implementation of All Schemes and Incentives for MSMEs

The Commissionerate of Industries and Commerce has taken another major step towards improving the ease of doing business in the state for the MSMEs by making the implementation of all the schemes and incentives for them completely online. The portals for the various schemes and incentives are given below:

Loan Schemes:

1. NEEDS : https://msmeonline.tn.gov.in/needs/index.php
2. UYEGP: https://msmeonline.tn.gov.in/uyegp/index.php
3. PMEGP: https://www.kviconline.gov.in/pmegpeportal/pmegphome/index.jsp

Incentive Schemes:

1. Capital Subsidy: https://msmeonline.tn.gov.in/incentives/capital/index.php
2. LTPT Subsidy: https://msmeonline.tn.gov.in/incentives/index.php
3. Generator Subsidy: https://msmeonline.tn.gov.in/incentives/index.php
4. Interest Subvention:               https://msmeonline.tn.gov.in/incentives/is/index.php
5. Promotion of Energy Audit and Conservation of Energy (PEACE):                             https://msmeonline.tn.gov.in/incentives/index.php
6. Amma Skill Training and Employment Scheme: https://msmeonline.tn.gov.in/ammaskill/index.php

It is relevant to note that all the above initiatives have been implemented with full involvement of all the relevant stakeholders, e.g., MSME associations at the state and district levels and the District Industries Centers in the districts. In recognition of its successful efforts to implement the Single Window Portal and transform the implementation of various schemes and incentives for the MSMEs through online applications, the Commissionerate of Industries and Commerce has been awarded the ISO 9001:2015 certification by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in July 2019.

Conclusion

Tamil Nadu is a leading state in the country in the MSME sector, both in terms of its overall size and the varieties of products that it produces. It is poised to achieve even greater heights in the years to come with a number of initiatives already being implemented in the state to improve the ease of doing business for the MSMEs. The Commissionerate of Industries and Commerce is actively working with all the stakeholders in the MSME ecosystem in the state to ensure that it is able to support the growth of the sector even further.

(The author is a senior IAS officer in Tamil Nadu and is currently working as the Principal Secretary/Industries Commissioner and Director of Industries and Commerce, Government of Tamil Nadu. The views are personal.)