An Overview
Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA-21) program launched on 18th February 2006. After the economic reform, in 1991 corporate sector of India required a new form of governance that can meet international standards. After the liberalization of India, the regulatory system needed to gear up in consonance with the best practices and technological development.
In 2002, the ministry of corporate affairs realized that they need to do something about companies operating in India in a way so that they can match the international standard. MCA 21 program was launched by the government as a flagship e-governance initiative of the Government of India under the national e-governance plan that would reflect India’s goal for the 21st century. The main objective of this initiative is to improve speed and certainty in the delivery of MCA services by total digital, paperless functioning of the offices of the four regional directors, 20 registrars, and 53 facilitation centers named physical front officers in the country.
The Main Objective of MCA-21
The first objective of the MCA-21 is to transform the mode of working of the ministry of corporate affairs from paper to paperless format. MCA-21 application is designed to fully automate all processes related to the proactive enforcement and compliances of legal requirements under the companies act,1956, companies act,2013, and limited liability partnership act,2008. This helps the business community to meet its statutory obligation.
Benefits of MCA-21-
MCA-21 has been designed to completely transform the work of the corporate from traditional paper to paperless this eliminates the physical interface between the companies and the offices of ROCs, RDs, and even MCA. It has saved the time and energy of the company representatives and also enabled them to focus on other creative tasks. A task like modification and satisfaction of charges, incorporation of new companies, conducting searches for important documents, etc., of working professionals, have now become very quick and easy.
The problem of the non-filling of annual returns of companies due to long queues at the ROC office is now eliminated with e-filing.
Beneficiaries of MCA-21-
The main focus of the MCA-21 program is on bringing about a fine balance between trade facilitation on one hand and enforcement requirements on other hand. By Adopting international best practices, the goals have been set to bring immense value to stakeholders and have been succinct as under:
- MCA enabled businesses to register their company and file statutory compliances quickly and easily.
- A user can get certified copies of forms and documents of a company, view forms, and documents online, etc.
- Employees are enabled to deliver the best breed services.
Banks and financial institutions can conduct a thorough scrutiny of the documents filed by the company before advancing loans and other financial assistance to such a company.
- MCA-21 has ensured better supervision and control of the MCA over companies concerning compliance with the provisions of the companies Thus, enforcement of the law has become easier and will ultimately benefit the investor, the stakeholders, and the concerned regulatory bodies.
Challenges Before MCA-21 Initiative-
MCA-21 is the first of its kind project with no references/templates while making a big leap into the digital era from a classic paper-based system, there is a need to introduce a system so complex and such exercise is not without its challenges professional felt resentful, they said that means you are going to layoff us and then ministry of corporate affairs said “we are not going to layoff you. We are going to redeploy you in some other capacity.” Since the MCA-21 project was implemented completely in a truly short period. The entire implementation was complete from start to finish in just seventy-seven weeks. This created chaos in the professional about the adaptation of the new system and work accordingly. Keeping all these factors in view MCA-21 was conceived as a holistic end-to-end service delivery project. So, after the implementation, MCA required a well-established IT infrastructure. And several new aspects are creating problems in making the MCA-21 projects efficient, some of them are amendments made in the stamp act and digital signature.
Conclusion-
MCA-21 initiative is part of the mission mode project of the government of India, aimed at making compliances and incorporation and other corporate-related works easier. Though it has made many works easier there is a need to introduce an effective and efficient IT infrastructure and make professionals aware of it. The experience gained from MCA-21 can serve as a solid foundation not just for improving service delivery but help the government think ‘out-of-the box’ for innovating and defining new services.
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