GURUGRAM: Haryana has come a long way in terms of industrial reforms that facilitate investors, climbing up from 14th spot in “ease of doing business” in 2016 to the third position this year. Even though industrialists are a little sceptical whether the sudden jump in rankings matches the pace of changes on ground, the regulatory and procedural reforms can hardly be refuted, at least on paper.Towards end-2015, the conversation in the corridors of the Haryana State Industry and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) office began centring on steps being taken to improve ease of doing business . By 2016, the state had moved to sixth place. The goal of being in the top five was achieved in 2018.“We’ve taken bold reforms to ensure Haryana is a favourite for investors. However, there still are a few areas where we need to do more work. Our focus is to be number one by next year,” said state industries minister Vipul Goel.One of the major steps taken was the notification of The Haryana Enterprises Promotion Bill in 2016, with an objective of simplifying the regulatory framework, giving investors single point and time-bound clearance to set up new industries. A senior official added, “We also constituted the Haryana Enterprise Promotion Centre (HEPC), a first-of-its-kind body that gives 70 different approvals under one roof.”HEPC has brought together approvals from several different departments, such as departments of labour, forest, the state pollution control board, town and country planning, under one roof. The official added the onus of clearances and approvals rests with concerned officials of a department, rather than the investor. And there’s a 45-day time period, after which the investor gets deemed clearance.According to sources, HEPC has received 36,000 applications since it was formed in 2016. “Our idea was to ensure HEPC is the sole entry and exit point for anyone looking to set up industry in Haryana,” said the official.The next thing on agenda was to increase transparency in processes. Hence, all approval and clearance processes were taken online, which led to smaller time-frames and deadlines for all kinds of processes. Investors can now track status of their applications in real time on the HEPC website, with the department even disclosing internal procedures.In case of processes not covered under HEPC, timelines were considered as per the Right to Service Act. The shift to online processes allowed the government to cut down physical interaction between officials and investors, further reducing corruption. “Even though online processes came with a benefit, our additional challenge was to ensure these processes were user-friendly, and providing door-to-door delivery of services to investors,” said the official.The government also introduced reforms in departments of labour and environment, allowing self-certification in “low-risk industries”.No inspections under labour laws can now be conducted without permission of heads of departments. For any grievances, a redress system, under which deputy commissioners hold monthly meetings, was also set up.With PM Modi’s aggressive approach towards industrialisation at the Centre, the CM didn’t stop at just regulatory and procedural changes. Haryana launched several sector specific policies, such as policies for start-ups, telecommunications and ITES, with a logistics and warehousing policy currently in the making.Haryana also hosted its first ever global investor summit (in 2016) and Haryana Pravasi Diwas, where crores of investments were promised through MoUs. However, highly-placed sources within HSIIDC said majority of these are yet to realise. An RTI reply revealed of the Rs 20,000 crore promised at Pravasi Diwas, only around 1% had come in yet.Many of the government’s plans also backfired, and may have done more harm than good. In case of labour reforms, for instance, the need for taking permission before inspections nullified the idea of inspections, and has led to many industries getting away with violations, alleged labour rights activists. Moreover, HSIIDC remains hugely in debt, is struggling to sell land, and the vibe within industrial estates is not positive. With all these problems, it remains to be seen how Haryana can achieve its goal of grabbing the top spot in the ease of doing business rankings.

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