Modi govt's big boost for entrepreneurship: Fill just 1 form to start a business from today

The Narendra Modi government seems to be walking the talk at least when it comes to business. According to a report in The Economic Times today, the government has taken a big step forward to ease up the doing of business in India by cutting the number applications to start up a company to just one. As of now, entrepreneurs need to fill up 8 forms when they start a company. “Name availability, allotment of Director Identification Number (DIN), company incorporation and commencement of business will now be possible through a single form,” an unnamed senior official with the corporate affairs ministry has been quoted as saying in the report. The form is called INC-29 and will be made avalilable on the minitry website, the report said. [caption id=“attachment_2214060” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PM Narendra Modi. Reuters[/caption] The move is in line with Modi’s promise to the business community that he will take steps to cut processes for doing business and reduce red tape. It is to be remembered, the country was ranked a lowly 142 (of 188 countries) on the World Bank’s ease of doing business index in 2014. Modi has time and again vowed to foreign investors, whose main grudge against the Indian system has been the processes and procedures that take months and years to complete, that he will make their life easier in India. This is also key to his Make in India programme. Addressing an India-German business summit in Hannover last month, Modi reportedly said that he has a check of 80-90 things that he need to do to ease the doing business. “The Prime Minister said that he does a status check on this list every 15 days or so. And he follows it up with the states to see what improvements have been made,” foreign affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin was quoted as saying in a NDTV  report. However, the step is just the first in a series that will ease the doing of business in the country. There are other crucial issues like tax terrorism, which are yet to be addressed. Nonetheless, cutting down the number of applications for starting up will long way in boosting the entrepreneurial spirit in the country.