Invest Punjab is a user-friendly portal, facilitating new and existing investors of Punjab. It is helping investors in having Regulatory Clearances and Fiscal Incentives for setting up and running businesses in the State of Punjab. Invest Punjab ensures world class facilitation to the investors, right from conceptualization of the project till commencement of commercial operations, Renewals and Fiscal Incentives thereafter.
Salient Features Invest Punjab has following innovative features: • Land Bank Records • Know Your Approvals • One-Time Registration • Dynamic - Common Application Form (D-CAF) • One-Time Document Submission • Online Payment Gateway • Online paperless filing and backend processing • Online Issuance of QR Code based verifiable approvals • Time bound approvals as per RTS Act • Provision for Third Party Verifications • Smart Dashboards for Decision Makers • Tracking through Data Analytics • Real-time Status / Alerts through SMS & Email • Pendency Intimation to Authorities on 50%, 75% and 90% Ageing of the Application • Tracking of MoUs through MoU Tracker • Business Query Handling • Grievance Redressal Mechanism • Intra-department Communication Mechanism • Feedback Entry & Publishing Mechanism Invest Punjab is beneficial for all domestic and international prospective entrepreneurs who consider Punjab as their preferred investment/ business destination. Further, this system is automatically forwarding the applications to State (FCI greater than Rs. 25 crore) or District (FCI equal or less than Rs. 25 crore) levels based on Fixed Capital Income (FCI) of the project. Currently, the stakeholder Departments are providing 67 Regulatory Clearances and 35 Fiscal Incentives approvals through Invest Punjab portal.
Challenges Faced in Implementation Process Invest Punjab holds clearances from 23 departments / agencies and to get all departments / agencies in sync was a challenge. To accomplish this, numerous presentations and discussions were held. Various acts, rules, notifications and guidelines have been studied for getting all departments / agencies onboard. During this exercise, focused effort was made to identify parallel and serial sets of activities involved at various levels. Following are the challenges (in brief) faced: • Bringing 23 departments / agencies under one umbrella • Development of Dynamic Common Application Form (D-CAF) to satisfies needs of each department/ agency • Setting clearances timelines to understand the paradigm of the regulatory regime applicability and process re-engineering • Fee and its distributions so that department can take all in one go • Grant of approvals in fixed timelines
Lessons Learnt from Re-Engineering Process • Standardisation to reduce system redundancy • Governance reforms by enhancing transparency and timely approvals • Business process re-engineering to facilitate the targeted population • Person-wise mapping of required activities • System enabled task alerts to enhance acceptability, efficiency and productivity • Seamless inter and intra-communication between all stakeholders • System allows more visibility to officers to process applications • Enhances flat working hierarchy • Regular follow-up and targeted milestones have enhanced the efficiency • Activities can be easily measured, monitor and control • Allows flexibility in further improvement of process • Outcome oriented • Reduces cost of administration
Benefits / Impact Invest Punjab holds more than 7,098 projects with proposed investment of 2,36,820 crore and employment of 4,63,121. Using the portal, member departments have processed more than 1,10,000 clearances till date. It has been working successfully all over the state. Kamal Kishore Yadav, IAS, CEO, Punjab Bureau of Investment Promotion (InvestPunjab), stated: "To study the successful model of Invest Punjab (SWCS), following States and Union Territories have visited NIC Punjab State Centre / Invest Punjab Office: Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Haryana, Maharashtra, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar. As of now, NIC Punjab has helped the teams of Haryana, Chandigarh, and Daman & Diu in replicating the portal at their end."
Technology Used All the modules were developed using Micro-Service Level Architecture where one backend can serve multiple frontends like Web App or Mobile App. The portal was developed using following technologies: Frontend: Angular 13 with Material Design Backend: NodeJS 14 Database: PostgreSQL 12
Accolades Invest Punjab has brought following accolades to the State of Punjab: • Punjab ranked first in ‘Setting Up of Business’ in the Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms by World Bank and Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Govt. of India in 2015 • Adjudged Leader in implementation of ‘Single Window Reforms’ in the Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms by World Bank and Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Govt. of India in 2016 • Digital India Award 2016 in Exemplary Online Service • SKOCH Order of Merit 2016 • Computer Society of India Nihilent Awards in 2016
Way Forward Invest Punjab team has designed an excellent application architecture which can be extended further for heavy loads in future, such as Checklist-based application processing, AI-based algorithm for final approvals, Incentive Calculator and Tag based document storage.