India’s largest e-governance initiative MCA-21 launched with comprehensive online portal for e-filing via @tatacompanies

	MCA-21, India’s largest e-governance initiative by the ministry of company affairs and a mission project under the government of India’s national e-governance plan, was formally launched on a pilot basis with a comprehensive online portal to enable e-filing under the MCA-21 project at a function held in Coimbatore. It is a major step in the direction of governance reforms, which constitutes a priority agenda of the UPA government. Within the next two months, the MCA-21 initiative will be launched nationwide across 20 offices of the registrar of companies, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad. The MCA-21 initiative is a flagship program being executed by the ministry of company affairs in partnership with Tata Consultancy Services on a BOOT (Build, Operate, Own and Transfer) model. Under the project framework, TCS will be responsible for designing and implementing the project; owning, operating and maintaining the system for a period of six years after successful roll out at all sites. Commenting on the landmark project, Ms Komal Anand, secretary, ministry of company affairs, said: "The MCA-21 project is the largest full-scale deployment of information technology, in the shortest possible time frame, and will revolutionise the way India Inc interfaces with the government." She added: "The MCA-21 program will bring about a service transformation in terms of ease of use and is slated to be a benchmark e-governance project in the country." Speaking on the occasion, S Ramadorai, CEO and MD, Tata Consultancy Services, said, "The MCA-21 project is visionary in nature and aims to bring speed, transparency and efficiency in the delivery of the services rendered by the ministry of company affairs to all the stakeholders through a set of pre-defined service levels." He added: "The launch also highlights the importance of public-private partnership model in the country, which is critical to enhance the adoption of technology across the country." Salient features of the launched MCA-21 include: Corporations, professionals and the public at large will no longer need to visit the registrar of company offices and will be able to interact with the ministry using the MCA-21 portal from their offices or home or by going to the facilitation centres, which have been set-up. The users will have multiple options to make payments in the online mode through either credit cards or the internet banking facility. Besides this, the traditional payment through demand draft would be accepted against a system-generated challan at more than 200 bank branches across the country. The programme also introduces the concept of director identification number (DIN), which is a unique and lifetime identification number being issued to all current and prospective directors. It is mandatory for all directors who wish to interact with the ministry in future to acquire a DIN. The system would also enable the stakeholder to track the service request through a Service Request Number (SRN). The MCA-21 project will also facilitate electronic submission of forms, which require a unique digital signature certificate (DSC). It is also mandatory for all the stakeholders who would interact with the ministry to have a DSC, since without that, it would not be possible to file the returns and other statutory compliance related filing. The system is secure and has a lot of redundancy built inside to make sure that the services are continuously available in a 24x7 time frame. To take care of any contingencies, there is a separate and full functionality disaster recovery system being implemented along with the primary data centre. In event of a man-made or a natural disaster, the system would switch over to the disaster recovery set-up within 12 hours.