In order to find ways to improve the overall business climate and boost the economic growth, the ministry of corporate affairs has decided to set up an Ecosystem Innovation Centre (EIC) under its additional secretary. This follows the directions given by the performance management division of the Cabinet Secretariat.
The EIC will be led by a core group of five senior officials from the corporate affairs ministry and will have the freedom of inviting experts to facilitate innovation process.
?The primary purpose of the EIC would be to nurture novel ideas and create a constructive environment for promoting innovations at all levels by associating all stakeholders within and outside the ministry? said a senior official in the corporate affairs ministry.
EIC will also focus on fostering innovation in business, company laws, and the overall business environment, among others. EIC will rope in experts from different fields including CAs, corporate lawyers, CEOs, CFOs of top companies among others, sources said.
The idea of an EIC comes at a time when the government is working on ways to improve the overall business climate and boost economic growth.
In last year’s Budget, the finance minister allocated R2,000 crore for national innovation fund. The move is in continuance of government’s strategy to create national innovation foundation, national innovation council among others. “All departments preparing result framework documents (RFD) are required to prepare and implement an action plan for enabling innovation in their respective departments,” said a senior official.
In 2009, the Prime Minister had approved the outlines of the “Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES)” for government departments.” As part of this system, approval was also given to the development of RFDs by all ministries and departments. RFD will contain major objectives of the department, actions required to achieve them, and success indicators for monitoring the achievement of the department’s objectives/actions,” the official said.
The move to create EIC with the corporate affairs ministry comes at a time when a high-level panel, headed by former Sebi chief M Damodaran, is working on ways to improve the country’s business climate. The 21-member panel, with eminent industrialists such as Anand Mahindra and Kumar Mangalam Birla, was constituted on August 23 last year to examine how the business climate in India can be improved by suggesting measures and reforms across the policy framework.
It was set up in the backdrop of World Bank report which ranked India 132 on ‘Doing Business’ list out of 183 countries.
“I don’t think India deserves to be ranked 132 out of 185 countries and so I have asked the Damodaran panel to give brief, concise and very sharp points on how to improve the business climate and increase investor confidence in our economic framework,” corporate affairs minister Sachin Pilot said in April.
