The government has started work on the third Jan Vishwas Bill that will go beyond decriminalisation of laws and focus on simplification of processes and procedures, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said Wednesday.
“We will be looking at simplification of procedures and processes, reducing compliance burden and reducing intimidating forms to make life of businesses better and more comfortable,” the minister said at the World Bank Group’s Business Workshop on Business Ready Framework.
The World Bank’s Business Ready (B-READY) that will assess a country’s business and investment environment is a successor of its Doing Business Report. The project is currently in the final stages of its three-year rollout after having moved past its pilot phases and is preparing for its first full global benchmarking. The report is likely to be released in November.
Through the first Jan Vishwas Bill that was operationalised in 2023 the government had amended 42 central laws across 19 ministries which decriminalised 183 provisions. The Jan Vishwas Bill 2.0 was passed by Parliament early April. This Bill amended 79 central acts across 23 ministries. It decriminalised 717 provisions and rationalised over 1000 offenses.
Goyal said all colonial era laws are being re-written to make them more contemporary.
He said to facilitate businesses India has signed nine Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in the past three and half years covering 38 developed countries and will sign 6-7 more in the next two years to expand the coverage to 50 developed countries.
FTA with Ecuador
Goyal met Minister of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility of Ecuador Gabriela Sommerfeld Rosero where both sides agreed to explore an FTA after studying the economic situation and complementarities of both countries. He told the visiting minister that Terms of Reference of FTA can be worked out and signed in July during the Joint Economic and Trade Council (JETCO) meeting. After the ToR is signed the FTA can be concluded in the next 3-4 months, Goyal said.
Exports in April
The minister said that India’s exports in the first three weeks of April were considerably higher than what was recorded in the same period of last year despite the West Asia war. In the first month of the war in March, India’s merchandise exports fell 7.4% on year to $ 38.92 billion. This decline was due to a fall of $ 3.5 billion in exports to West Asia during the month. The overall exports in March were down 4.5% to $ 74.11billion.
“With more FTAs becoming operational in months to come opportunities for exporters will increase,” Goyal said on the sidelines of another event “Viksit Bharat 2047: advancing Resilience with Climate Intelligence”.