The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) registered more than 1.67 lakh company incorporations during the financial year 2021-22 as compared with 1.55 lakh companies in the previous fiscal.

The increase is significant considering that the number of companies incorporated during FY21 were the highest in any of the previous years, the ministry said in a statement.

The incorporations during FY22 are 8% more than the incorporations during FY21. While MCA had registered 1.24 lakh companies during FY19 and 1.22 lakh companies in 2019-20 respectively, it had registered 1.55 lakh companies during FY21.

As part of the central government’s drive for ease of doing business, the ministry said it has taken many initiatives, saving as many procedures, time and cost for starting a business in India.

The MCA launched SPICe+ form in February 2020 and also integrated 11 different services, across three central government ministries and departments (Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Labour, and Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance), three state governments (Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal), and NCT of Delhi.

These services include name reservation, company incorporation, director identification number, EPFO registration number, ESIC registration number, PAN, TAN, profession tax registration number for the state of Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal, bank account number and GSTN Number (on optional basis) and Shop and Establishment Registration number for NCT of Delhi.

During 2021-22, the states having the highest number of registrations were Maharashtra (31,107 companies) followed by Uttar Pradesh (16,969 companies) Delhi (16,323 companies) Karnataka (13,403 companies) and Tamil Nadu (11,020 companies).

On the basis of sectors, 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 and allied activities (13,387 companies).

The ministry has revised the definition of small companies which has reduced compliance burden on about 2 lakh companies. It offers zero MCA fee for company incorporation up to ₹15 lakh authorised capital.

The MCA has also de-criminalised technical and procedural violations under Companies & LLP Act.

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