New Delhi: Covid-19 global pandemic seems to have failed to dent India's entrepreneurial spirit as the ministry of corporate affairs, the nodal body for the administration of companies and limited liability partnerships in the country, registered a record 1,67,000 new companies in the last financial year which ended in March. This record number of new company registration comes on the back of another record number of registration during the first Covid year, the FY 2020-21, when the ministry of corporate affairs had registered a record 1,55,000 companies.
The financial year 2020-21 (April-March 2021 period) was the worst hit by the outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had imposed the world’s most stringent lockdown in March 2020 to curb the community spread of the deadly SarS-CoV-2 virus which was first discovered in China’s Wuhan region. "The increase is significant considering that the number of companies incorporated during Financial Year 2020-21 was the highest in any of the previous years. The incorporations during FY 2021-22 are 8% more than the incorporations during FY 2020-21," said the government.
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If compared with the registration of new companies during the pre-pandemic year, the registration of new companies in the last two financial years is a record as only 1,22,000 new companies were registered in India in 2018-19 and 1,24,000 new companies were registered in FY 2019-20. Officials said the registration of new companies went up as the Centre pushed for Ease of Doing Business. "The MCA has taken many initiatives thereby saving as many procedures, time and cost for starting a business in India," said officials.
Just before the first national lockdown in March 2020, the government launched the SPICe+ forms in February 2020 and also integrated 11 different services across three central government ministries and departments. The ministries are the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Labour and the Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance and also with three state governments - Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal and National Capital Delhi which is a Union Territory.
These processes are Name Reservation, Company Incorporation, Director Identification Number, EPFO Registration Number, ESIC Registration Number, issue of a Permanent Account Number (PAN), issue of Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN), Profession Tax Registration Number for the state of Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal, and Bank Account number and GSTN Number (on Optional basis), and Shop and Establishment Registration Number for NCT of Delhi.
Maharashtra leads the race
During FY 2021-22, the highest number of new companies were registered from the western state of Maharashtra with 31,107 companies, followed by Uttar Pradesh (16,969 companies) Delhi (16,323 companies) Karnataka (13,403 companies) and Tamil Nadu (11,020 companies). Sector-wise, the maximum number of companies were incorporated in the Business Services (44,168 companies), followed by Manufacturing (34,640 Companies) Community, personal and Social Services (23,416 companies) and Agriculture & Allied Activities (13,387 companies).
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