DCA may let companies report online

The department of company affairs has drawn up an ambitious computerisation and e-governance programme, which will enable companies to file their reports electronically.

The automation plan, which was being prepared by the department of information technology and the National Institute of Smart Governance, would be managed by a private firm, a government official told Business Standard. The programme will work on a build-operate-transfer model.

The DCA earns over Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) annually as fees for registering and rendering certain services to companies. The private agency, which runs the DCA website, will receive a certain percentage of the fees for providing the platform.

"The fees are in the nature of a user charge. We will only pay a part of it to the agency which manages the site," the official said.

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh is said to be keen on implementing the automation plan to ensure that direct contact between companies and DCA officials is reduced.

A similar model has been adopted by the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka governments for providing services like property registration and payment of state taxes.

The DCA has, however, scrapped a proposal to create a special purpose vehicle with the help of private players like Housing Development and Finance Corporation and ICICI Bank for the purpose.

Recently, the commerce department was rated as the best among central ministries in terms of e-readiness in a World Bank-sponsored study conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

The commerce ministry was followed by the DIT. The study ranked the animal husbandry department as the least prepared for e-readiness.

Among the relatively small-sized departments, the department of administrative reforms and public grievances was ranked first and the cabinet secretariat ranked second by the study.

In the mid-sized ministries category, the ministry of non-conventional energy resources and the ministry of defence's supply and production division were rated as the leaders in the report.