What is the National Single Window System and how will it work?

National Single Window System India: In a bid to smoothen business activities and to make business approvals in the country easier, the Central government soft launched the National Single Window System last September. A year later, while reviewing the process and implementation, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday said that the government is planning to make Permanent Account Number (PAN) as the unique identifier to enter into the national single window system (NSWS).  

The NSWS can be described as a one-stop platform for businessmen seeking regulatory approvals and services related to investments. The platform would help businesses in identifying and applying for required approvals to start or run their businesses. 

The digital platform has applications for various approvals from 26 Central Departments and 16 State Governments. Businessmen can apply for these approvals through NSWS. 

Since its launch, 27 central government departments and 19 States/Union Territories, including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, have integrated into the National Single Window System. By December 15, five more states and union territories, Haryana, Andaman and Nicobar, Tripura, Jharkhand, and Arunachal Pradesh, will be integrated under it. 

How does it work? 

The NSWS system is currently under the beta testing phase and is looked at as the first big step towards digitisation of trade. 

• The platform will allow online filing and tracking of all applications and clearances.  
• This would help investors to obtain clearances from different stakeholders without visiting different government offices physically. 
• At present, 13 different business IDs like EPFO, ESIC, GSTN, TIN, TAN, and PAN are being used to apply for various government approvals in the system. 
• But the Centre is planning to let businesses use Permanent Account Number (PAN) as a unique identifier to apply on the platform to get different clearances and approvals of central and state departments. 

Minister’s inputs 

Tweeting about the relevance and importance of NSWS, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said: "We are beta-testing the National Single Window System. We have received 76,000 applications in this testing phase."  

The minister added that: “Different ministries are working together to use one of the existing databases as the single-entry point, most probably that will be the PAN." 

Goyal noted that PAN entry will prevent duplication, help auto populate other application forms that are received on the system, and speed up the approval process. With the PAN, a lot of the basic data about the company, its directors, addresses, and a lot of common data is already available on the PAN database, he added. 

He said that technical glitches were as low as 514 and said it means there's 99.32 per cent efficiency in the system. "So far, 48,000 approvals generated out of this system. A large number of departments and states have been onboarded. We have received invaluable suggestions from stakeholders," Goyal said on Monday.