Jammu and Kashmir is the first among all States and Union Territories across the country to be integrated with the National Single Window Clearance System (NSWS). The country’s youngest but largest UT achieved this pioneering distinction when Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha launched the Jammu and Kashmir Single Window Clearance System through the cyber domain www.singlewindow.jk.gov.in at Raj Bhawan in Jammu on Monday.
The NSWS is linked with India Industrial Land Bank (IILB) which hosts 45 industrial parks of Jammu and Kashmir. This will help investors to discover available land parcels in the UT. A 2020 budgetary announcement of the Government of India, NSWS is a digital platform that serves as a guide for investors to identify and to apply for approvals as per their business requirements. The platform was soft launched in September 2021 by the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Piyush Goyal.
This integration will eliminate the need for investors to visit multiple platforms and offices to gather information and obtain clearances from stakeholders. Twenty Ministries and Departments including the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare have been integrated on the NSWS. Currently 142 central approvals can be applied for through the NSWS portal.
Jammu and Kashmir has taken the lead over 13 other States and UTs which have been taken on board on NSWS. These include Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
The Know Your Approval (KYA) module on NSWS guides investors to identify approvals required for their business based on a dynamic intuitive questionnaire. Currently, the module hosts more than 3,000 approvals across the Centre and States. Currently more than 1,250 investors are registered on the NSWS portal www.nsws.gov.in.
As many as 130 industrial services have been made online on a single window system even as more than 160 services would be integrated in the current year.
Speaking at the inauguration, Manoj Sinha reiterated his government’s commitment to strengthen the industrial ecosystem in a manner that the benefits percolate to all sections of the society. “J&K Single Window Clearance System is a historic move by the UT Government to facilitate investments. We are ensuring ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and ‘Ease of Living’ through minimum regulatory compliance burden”, he said.
“J&K is the first UT to be integrated with the National Single Window System. Now global investors can apply for all their business approvals in J&K through the National Single Window system”, Sinha added.
Expressing gratitude to the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister for bringing industrial reforms to J&K, Sinha said that in the last one year, since the launch of the new Industrial Development Scheme, the UT Government’s policies had evolved to make Jammu & Kashmir more competitive and lucrative for industries and service enterprises.
“These reforms have helped us receive investment proposals worth Rs 70,000 crore in different sectors within a year,” Sinha asserted.
After years of poor performance in industrialisation, Sinha said, Jammu & Kashmir was at a new stage in its development trajectory. Focused attention was being given to the growth of dynamic sectors including real estate, horticulture and tourism so as to create increased employment opportunities.
Sinha noted that the J&K Government was taking reformative measures for linking Jammu & Kashmir into a web of partnership with the domestic and foreign companies and ensuring global best practices in our regulatory institutions and systems. “We are strengthening J&K’s power and road infrastructure, improving connectivity and law & order situation. We have launched a massive programme of Rs one lakh crore investment to upgrade infrastructure,” Sinha said.
Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta said that the administration was making constant efforts to be among the top performers in Ease of Doing Business and Ease of Living and bring fundamental change in the socio-economic ecosystem. He emphasised monthly progress review meetings with all stakeholder departments, ensuring successful implementation of different dovetailed government services on the ground.
More than 130 services are hosted online through the Single Window Portal and over 2,600 burdensome regulatory compliances have been identified and uploaded on the Central RCB portal within its deadline of 31 January 2022.
Some short films on “New Jammu & Kashmir vision & development”, “J&K Single Window System” and “Integrated National Single Window System (NSWS)” were screened on the occasion.
Sumita Dawra, Additional Secretary, DPIIT, said that the integration of J&K Single Window system with the National Single Window system would enable the investors to know the preliminary clearances (Know Your Approvals) on a single click and they could apply for the services either through NSWS and JKSWS.
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