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The project will eliminate the physical interface between the companies and the RoCs and all services, such as registration of new companies, filing of annual returns and balance sheets and also viewing of documents would be available to the public online.

New Delhi , Dec. 29

THE Ministry of Company Affairs intends to improve the quality of service delivered to various stakeholders through an e-governance project.

The Ministry launched a major e-governance project, known as MCA21, on March 1.The project aims at transforming the Ministry into a paperless, modern, service-oriented, quality-conscious and customer-centric organisation. It also envisages shifting the entire business process of the Registrar of Companies (RoCs) to e-governance mode.

On completion, the project will all but eliminate the physical interface between companies and the RoCs and all services, such as registration of new companies, filing of annual returns and balance-sheets and also viewing of documents, would be online. This is expected to enable transparency as well as speedy monitoring of non-compliance by the companies.

Besides taking the initiative of a comprehensive revision of the existing Companies Act, the Ministry also came out with a concept paper on Limited Liability Partnership Law.

During the recently concluded winter session of Parliament, the Bills to amend the pieces of legislation governing Chartered Accountants, Company Secretaries and Cost and Works Accountants were passed. The amendments would equip the professionals, who cater to the needs of the corporate sector, to face competition from global players, as also to bring greater transparency and accountability in conduct of affairs of these professional bodies.

Speeding up liquidation

To overcome the problem faced due to slow liquidation process, the Ministry has taken steps to speed up the mechanism and improve on the recovery rate within the existing legal framework.

The issue is also being further addressed in the new company law. The Ministry also expects that once the National Company Law Tribunal is fully operationalised, the procedural delays in liquidation will come down drastically.

The Ministry has been able to trace 114 vanishing companies and their defaulting officers.

The number of vanishing companies currently stands at 115. While first information reports (FIRs) have been filed in over 100 cases, advertisements have been issued in the media listing out the defaulters.

The Ministry has also assisted all State governments seeking its cooperation in tracing the defaulters.

To ease the burden on the RoC offices, the Ministry had launched a Simplified Exit Scheme 2005 to offer an easy exit route for companies which were either not functional since inception or had ceased to be functional and wanted to discontinue the business.

The scheme was in operation for seven months and closed on August 31. A total of 26,483 companies opted to exit under the scheme.

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