14 government agencies start providing services under one roof
KATHMANDU, May 16: Services of as many as 14 different government agencies were brought under one roof from Wednesday, targeting to provide a one-stop service to investors.
From now, any individual or group interested in establishing any enterprise in Nepal can get services of all those agencies from the nine units of One-Stop Service Center (OSSC) opened at the premise of Tripureshwar-based Department of Industry (DoI).
The center has eliminated the cumbersome process of reaching to different agencies like Office of the Company Registrar to Inland Revenue Department (IRD), among others, for business registration. This initiative is expected to ease doing business environment in the country.
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Through these reforms, the government has set an ambitious plan of improving investment climate and bringing in foreign investments to create jobs and retain youths going abroad within next five years.
Binod Prakash Singh, director general of the department, said that officers of 14 government agencies have been deputed in the same floor of the Tripureshwar-based office. The services offered by the center provides range from registration to insolvency of firms.
The nine units represented in the center area Office of Company Registration, customs and tax office as well as offices looking after environmental, administration, legal and infrastructure (energy and communication) issues, among others. Similarly, government offices facilitating in land acquisition, foreign currency exchange, visa, and foreign investment and technology transfer have also deputed their officers at the center.
The integration of the services are provisioned in the Industrial Enterprises Acts, 2016. The government is implementing the provision as promised to investors during the Nepal Investment Summit held in March.
“The officers of these units are also responsible for any issues that an investor faces in regard to their firms. They will have to address those issues promptly with the help of their respective departments and offices as and when needed. Investors do not have to go elsewhere,” said Singh.
The units have to complete registration of firm within seven days of receiving all required documents. As the documentation process is electronic, same documents can be used by different units. This will relieve investors of the burden of repeatedly submitting same set of documents to different agencies, according to the OSSC.
Likewise, the Investment Board Nepal will also have a separate one-stop service unit for large scale investments. During the Nepal Investment Summit held earlier in March, the government had made commitment to start one-stop services at both the offices to facilitate investors.
This initiative is expected to improve Nepal’s doing business indicator which slipped by five points to 110th position last year. According to the World Bank, problems in tax filing was one of the reason behind Nepal’s slip in the doing business indicator.
The Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) has welcomed the opening up of the center. Issuing a statement, it said that it was hopeful that the reforms will improve investment climate in the country. “Effective operation of the center can relieve investors of the burden of visiting different agencies which is full of hassles and time consuming,” the CNI said in a statement on Wednesday.
