Online permissions mooted for industries

- As part of ease of doing business policy, State government initiates steps to simplify procedures
- Industries department not to accept offline applications

Amaravati: As part of efforts to attract investors and implement industrial-friendly policy, the Andhra Pradesh government is taking steps to provide certain incentives for the applications which are filed online. Permissions would be given online as per various industrial policies. The government thinks that Single Desk Portal (SDP) is a key constituent of ease of doing business (EDB).

The State government, which bagged first rank at national level for ease of doing business as per the DIPP-World Bank Ranking 2016, is planning to bring several reforms aiming improvement in ease of doing business in the State.

In this direction, Industries and Commerce Department has come up with a proposal to introduce additional incentives to the existing ones. This will create business-friendly environment with regard to various industrial policies and sectoral polices such as land cost reimbursement, land conversion cost reimbursement, mortgage duty reimbursement, marketing assistance, quality certification and patent registration charges reimbursement, seed capital assistance, skill development and training, Swachh Andhra and industrial infrastructure development fund.

As per existing guidelines, the sanction of incentives for micro, small and medium enterprises will be done by District Industrial Promotion Committee (DIPC) under the chairmanship of District Collector; and for large industries, State level committee under the chairmanship of the commissioner of industries.

As the above procedure is taking more time, the department has taken decision to simplify the system of giving clearances as per the directions from Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

The Industrial Units, existing or new or expansion projects in the State, who are applying for the sanction of new incentives under various industrial policies of 2005-10, 2010-15 and also for the Industrial Development Policy (IDP) 2015-20, should apply online from now.

The department will not accept offline applications, attached documents and any additional information through hard copies. Processing procedure of incentive applications is made simple by minimising the number of documents to be attached to the online application form with a digitally signed self-declaration form. Digital signatures by both entrepreneurs as well as department officials is made mandatory in order to maintain the authenticity and legality of the procedure. Information on incentives is available on the industries department portal https://www.apindustries.gov.in/incentives/.