Following the direction of Narendra Modi Government at Centre, the Arvind Kejriwal Government has set April 30 as the deadline for the departments of industries, trade and taxes, public works, power and municipal bodies to ease business procedures to improve the World Bank ranking of the city for next year.
The deadline has been reportedly set to ensure that the revenue targets, which had taken a hit during a year-long rule of the President, are met in the national Capital. Both Delhi and Mumbai has been chosen by Centre to improve world ranking of the city under supervision of World Bank.
India is still the lowest ranked country in South Asia for ‘ease of doing business’ with Sri lanka (99), Nepal (108), the Maldives (116), Bhutan (125), and Pakistan (128) ranked higher. Singapore topped the list for a ninth straight year followed by New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Delhi Chief Secretary
KK Sharma recently held a high-level meeting with his principal secretaries and other heads of departments (HoDs) and directed them to ease norms and open up single-window clearance system to encourage trade to improve tax collections in the city.
The Chief Secretary made it clear to his officers that
the implementation of the decisions taken at the meeting should be closely monitored and follow-ups done on these be immediately brought to
his notice.
Sharma also directed the three-BJP lead municipal bodies to give a PowerPoint presentation on their works, including the scope of power generation from the waste materials. He instructed the Environment Department to direct the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to take appropriate action to control the ash being generated by an incinerator plant, which was causing inconvenience to the residents of Sukhdev Vihar.
The Chief Secretary directed the Urban Development Department to speed up the process of fixing boundaries of unauthorised colonies by the revenue
section. He said that the municipal bodies should take necessary action for approving the layout plan of the unauthorised colonies.
On the desilting of
drains before the onset of monsoon and prevention of waterlogging, the Chief Secretary directed that the action plan and all other related information should be uploaded on the website. He directed that the action for removal of the silt should be completed by April 30. He said that the deputy commissioners of Revenue Department should carry out inspections in their areas and submit report to his office through the revenue secretary-cum-divisional commissioner’s office.
Sharma directed that the digitisation of the land record and its uploading on the Government portal should be expedited for all the district of the city administration so that these records can be accessed by common citizens.
The Chief Secretary directed the Fire Service Department to carry out inspections of schools to evaluate their fire safety standards. “To deal with
the incidents of fire in highrise buildings, the Delhi
Fire Services should review its fire fighting infrastructure,” the minutes of the meeting accessed by this newspaper revealed.
Even the PWD secretary requested all the departments to first obtain sanction of
the competent authority for revision of estimates in respect of projects being implemented by the PWD.