Nirmala Sitharaman emphasizes the critical role regulators played during the lockdown

NEW DELHI : Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged regulators to stay ahead of the curve when dealing with digitization while emphasizing the critical role they played during the lockdown when companies were allowed to complete compliances virtually.

“We all have to be ahead of the curve to see where the regulation has to fall in place, where the regulations have to have a softer touch, where the regulations have to be deterrent strong enough. We need to have agencies ready to be able to gauge what... to do to (have) fair, accountable and transparent practices," Sitharaman said on Tuesday while inaugurating the ministry of corporate affairs’ (MCA’s) week during the ongoing Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.

She said the government took several measures to help companies, including introducing the Decriminalization of Companies Act 2013 and Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. It also introduced amendments on many occasions to constantly improve upon the law.

De-criminalization of technical and procedural violations was an important step taken during the pandemic as the prime minister’s message was to ‘trust your businesses, give them confidence that government is looking at them favourably’, she noted.

“The MCA is uniquely placed as it is facilitating people while regulating. It has impacted the lives of common Indians, be in their small businesses, or part of a larger business or even small investors," the minister said.

She praised domestic investors, saying they had acted as “shock absorbers" in a volatile market even as foreign institutional investors were exiting. “Retail investors in India have come in a big way that they now seem to act as shock absorbers. If FPIs and FIIs went away, our markets didn’t show ups & downs... because small investors have come in a big way in the country."

Launching a Single Nodal Account or SNA on Tuesday, the minister said the Centre transfers about ₹ 4.46 trillion to states through centrally sponsored schemes, and the SNA dashboard would bring transparency in their utilization as it would track the fund.

According to the ministry, the dashboard will provide a platform for ministries and departments to monitor their transfer of funds to states, utilization by the implementing agencies and also assist in cash management.

“About ₹ 4.46 lakh crore (trillion) go through the centrally sponsored schemes, and that is not at all a small amount. Today if you are able to track that money moving to the states, from states further down to the districts, then further down to the village level, it is a huge success in making governance transparent," she said.

Sitharaman said there could not be a better contribution to the governance in a democracy than being “fair, open, accountable and transparent".

Describing the dashboard as a major step in governance, she said: “Like the way it is (with) Aadhar, like the way it is the Cowin app, like the way we have come up with the payments systems, the UPI, this (SNA), for governance, is the UPI. You made every payment easy."

Speaking at the launch, finance secretary T.V. Somanathan said the SNA dashboard would help reduce interest expenditure as money would be released immediately at the stage where it is required.

Sitharaman also launched two other facilities -- a special window facility for senior citizens above 75 years for seeking refunds from the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority and a National Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Exchange Portal.

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