Coimbatore

As part of its efforts to improve ease of doing business in the country, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said that the government was in the process of weeding out unnecessary and unwanted rules and regulations which prove to be impediments.

The rules and regulations, some enacted during the British era, were becoming stumbling blocks for doing business and the government was working on removing unnecessary rules as it wanted to simplify the procedures, she told reporters here.

“We actually wanted to put an end to the control mechanism or licence quota Raj and totally remove the residual impact of such Raj, as done in the Defence sector,” she said.

There were hundreds of such rules and some 60 to 70 decade-old archaic laws, which had to be removed, she said.

The cabinet this week had worked out a procedure in the medical and diagnostic equipment sector.

The minister was on a visit to the city and nearby hosiery town of Tirupur to highlight Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious project “Make in India” and to know the problems and issues being faced in the manufacturing and textile sector, including knitwear, hosiery, spinning and autoloom.

Replying to a question, she said major part of works had been completed with regard to Foreign Trade Policy while her ministry had reviewed Free Trade Pacts, particularly with European Union, and Special Economic Zones, the two issues raised by the industrialists.

She, however, added that no specific time frame could be given on FTP, which has financial commitments among other things.

She also said Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had convened a meeting of state chief secretaries and secretaries of various departments on December 29 to elicit their opinions and ascertain the problems faced by the states in implementing the “Make in India” project.

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