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Kripa Raman

Mumbai , Dec. 18

IF you are an investment banker seeking information on an unlisted company, you will need to physically go to the particular office or branch of the Registrar of Companies where the company is registered and suffer through a tedious procedure to access its records.

"And, even when the procedure is done, it is not unusual to be told that the records cannot be found" says a senior official with one of the two top investment bankers in the country.

But the ongoing e-governance project of the Ministry of Company Affairs (MCA) that seeks to digitise six crore pages of documents with the RoC and make them available online for inspection upon making the necessary payment could open a whole world of data on Indian industry.

The online procedure will make human intervention at suppression or excuses of non-availability impossible.

In year's time: The `MCA21' initiative, as it is called, is being put in place by Tata Consultancy Services and is expected to be finished in roughly a year's time. By April 2006, the project seeks to have fully-functional systems covering all MCA locations countrywide.

The six-crore pages of documents will include certificates of incorporation, Form 5, Form 18, Form 21, 23A, Forms 37 and 39, routine mandatory documents such as annual returns, balance-sheets, and charge documents. Annual reports of 2003-04 and 2004-05 are also expected to be scanned into the systems.

"When the system goes live, the records of any company can be viewed from anywhere through the Internet on payment of the necessary RoC fees," says a note on the Ministry's site. "However, it will be limited to only those documents that are currently in the RoC files. But the repository will progressively build up with the new electronic documents that will be filed by companies and within a few years the electronic repository is expected to have a rich content. Citizens can also request certified copies online as part of the proposed solution."

Largest database: "This will be the largest store of data that will be available, and there is an excellent lot of records lying with the RoC," said Mr Mahesh Vyas, Managing Director and CEO of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Currently the CMIE, according to him, after the MCA, has the largest available database in the country, consisting of information on three lakh companies. "Currently those doing M&A, and even lenders seek us out."

It is currently not entirely impossible to get records of unlisted companies from the RoC, said Mr Vyas but the tediousness is tremendous. This itself can render it impossible, said the investment banker.

Info on closely-held cos too: According to Mr Vyas, RoC records can make available more information on several listed companies as well, whose holding companies are often closely held by promoter families. "We depend a lot on personal contacts for M&A activities, especially when it comes to unlisted companies. But personal contacts don't give us a picture of the entire set of eligibles available to us, an RoC database would make available such information," he said. "In addition, we would expect research houses to use this information to produce more derivative and value-added research."

"Currently there are very few resources available on unlisted companies but this RoC e-governance project can make a lot of information available," said Mr Prithvi Haldea, Managing Director, Prime Database.

To reduce paper work: The primary intention of MCA21 is to cut down on paperwork for the Ministry. The physical front offices that are to be set up are to avoid the crowding of people during peak filing season at the RoC offices. "These centres will serve as facilitation centres to receive the documents, convert them into electronic documents, and transfer the same in digital form to the back office (RoC office) for further processing and decision-making. The Ministry's work will become easier and more efficient," says the MCA.

Facilitating easier availability of information to the public is a by-product of the programme.

More Stories on : Regulatory Bodies & Rulings | E-Governance | Investment Banking

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