Ease of business remains a concern, says Sunil Mittal

Mumbai: Sunil Mittal, head of Bharti Airtel, has said ease of doing business still remains a “major concern” and urged the government to do more.

“The ease of doing business remains a major concern. I know government is very focused on this, the PM wants our ranking to go up. You come out with fantastic policies,” Mr Mittal said.

Describing how he was stunned to get approvals for a merger in Ghana in flat three days despite the holding companies were based in The Netherlands,  Mr Mittal rued that it still takes much longer for such processes in our country.

“We can’t get to three days. But can we get to 30, may be 60 days? We really need such a framework,” he told a panel discussion where Arun Jaitley was the chief guest.

He cited the case of the merger of a 100 per cent subsidiary with the parent, saying it takes up to five months to get the requisite approvals in India.

Mr Mittal said the government has de-clogged the courts to have the National Company Law Tribunals, a special forum for clearing mergers and acquisitions, but termed the progress on this as “slow” as they are taking “time to stabilise”.

As a solution, he suggested having an inter-ministerial panel or a committee that may look into the industry’s suggestions and implement them.

“My appeal to the government is to create an inter- ministerial framework, a committee may be, where we can present with logic as to what needs to be changed and you will either reject the logic or buy it. Then government must take a position as quickly as possible,” he said.