March 25, 2021
The Central Scrutiny Centre (CSC) and Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority’s (IEPFA) Mobile App were virtually launched on March 25.
Both of these are initiatives by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, which is responsible for the data quality being uncompromised and free from flaws.
The two new initiatives would work towards the building of a new corporate and investor-friendly ecosystem.
The CSC will inspect user filings and fix any data discrepancies while the Mobile App is meant for citizen engagement and creating awareness among investors.
On March 25th 2021, two tech-enabled initiatives by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) were virtually launched by the Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. These are the Central Scrutiny Centre (CSC) and Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority’s (IEPFA) Mobile App.
During the event, Smt. Sitharaman mentioned that the MCA was responsible for the quality of data being uncompromised and lacking any flaws, since it was among the major primary sources of corporate data. Accordingly, it has established a Central Scrutiny Centre to inspect the user filings under straight through processes and take the issues and irregularities, if any, to the concerned Registrar of Companies in order that measures be taken to restore credibility and reliability of the data. With regard to the IEPFA Mobile App, the finance minister explained that it has been developed for citizen engagement, dissemination of information to promote awareness and protection among investors, and aimed to reach the goal of financial literacy, both in rural and urban areas. The app, currently available on Android based devices, contains the facility to track the progress of the IEPF claim refund process along with a system that enables both investors and regular citizens to report any potentially fraudulent schemes.
The finance minister added that both the initiatives are among the efforts to further the vision of the Prime Minister of ‘Digitally empowered India’ and explained how Digital India, a campaign by the Indian government, has been taking measures to ensure that services are accessible electronically to citizens through the digital empowerment in technology. She also added the two new initiatives would work towards the building of a new corporate and investor-friendly ecosystem. Furthermore, the MCA would introduce more tech-enabled services to ease the conducting of businesses and improve the living standards for the people. Previously, in order to back the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) in India, the MCA had launched a plethora of initiatives such as the introduction of integrated form SPICe+ & Agile Pro for incorporation of Companies, giving one stop solutions to those wishing to set up a business in the country. This could be attributed as the reason behind the increase in the number of incorporation of companies in India in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic. Smt. Sitharaman also brought to light the engagement of the MCA in a continuous journey of digitisation, automation and improvement to benefit professionals, corporates and as a consequence, the economy.