Dear friends
Elections
We are in the midst of world’s biggest poll battle, the general elections in India, voting is being held in nine stages from Apr 7th to May 12th and results are expected on May 16th . More than 814 million people are eligible to vote in this election which is a huge event. The whole nation is involved and is eagerly waiting for the outcome. This is the first time in history that Indian Voter has an option to reject all candidates, using a none of the above (Nota).
Expectation from new Government
As an ordinary citizen – uplifting the entire below poverty line population which constitutes around 22% of the country’s population and ensuring basic needs such as food, health, education and shelter to every Indian citizen; its high time even after 60 years of independence we still need to talk about this.
Entrepreneur and Business – The Need of the hour is stability i.e. stability in government and its policies. The other biggest challenge before the nation is to create jobs. India needs to add 115 million new non-farm jobs in next one decade which is only possible with the healthy growth of private sector. I think that the new government should deal with – policy paralysis, work on improving the ease of forming and running businesses in India, go all out to attract domestic and overseas capital.
Companies Act 2013
The other subject which is engaging for corporate’s and professionals is the New Company Law, majority provisions of which have become effective from 1st Apr 2014. While one of the goals of new company law is to bring in self-regulation and accountability, it appears that the provisions have become more complex and difficult to comply. It seems that our parliamentarians have kept only few recent scams (Stayam, IPO scam, Jagan cases) in mind while legislating the New Company Law disregarding the genuine difficulties for large privately held companies, in developing the startup ecosystem. These practicalities have to be re looked immediately else the Indian ranking on ease of doing business will worsen further from the current ranking of 130 over 180 countries which is in itself is bad. Lot of difficulties arose due to notification of rules and forms in haste. The privileges for private limited companies which existed in the old act are passé. Registration of a company has become much more documentation oriented and time consuming which will bug new entrepreneurs and overseas investors who intend to start business in India. Industry and professional bodies have been making representations on the various difficulties faced, which hopefully the new government will look into resolve in the interest of all stakeholders.
With best regards
Raghu Babu G