FDI proposals await clearances

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 9

The abolition of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) in June 2017 has left some of the foreign investors in the lurch with ministries sitting on the proposals for more than a year, while the deadline for clearing them had been kept at 60 days.

Even though the PMO has been keeping a close eye on this issue and seeking a periodic report from the ministries over the pending FDI proposals, movement in some of the ministries is just stuck with the competent authority not wanting to take a decision.

The PMO had in December last reviewed the proposals which had been pending for more than three months following which there had been some movement and as late as May 2018, the Finance Ministry cleared FDI proposals worth Rs 3,250 crore.

It said that in the same month, the government disposed of a total of five FDI proposals approving three and rejecting one while one was sent back to the applicant.

However, one such proposal has been pending with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for over a year, even after getting no objection from all the ministries concerned.