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The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has come out with a draft National Competition Policy, an overarching framework that seeks to assess existing public policies and ensure that these do not restrict or harm competition.
The draft policy has suggested that all Departments and Ministries of Central and State Governments set up an in-house cell to undertake competition impact assessment of various policies, statutes and rules enforced by them. It has also favoured the establishment of a National Competition Policy Council (NCPC), which would facilitate and provide technical assistance to these in-house cells of different departments.
“The policy assumes significance as it aims to infuse competition principles in all activities of the Government. It is going to make people sit up and review all existing policies, and lead to introspection,” former Chairman of Competition Commission of India, Mr Dhanendra Kumar said.
The Ministry has placed the draft policy on its Web site and invited public comments by August 18. While the existing competition law is a regulatory instrument to check prevalence of anti-competitive behaviour, the competition policy is a pro-active effort to build a competition culture in the economy. In essence, the competition law is a subset of the competition policy.
According to the draft competition policy, the NCPC will promote involvement of consumer movement in implementing the competition policy; encourage formulation, adoption and dissemination of competition policy principles in various Ministries, and undertake sectoral studies, amongst others functions.
“The National Competition Policy Council will facilitate development of a manual for undertaking Competition Impact Assessment suited to the local context,” the draft said.
It has suggested review of the competition policy every five years and said that an annual report of the work undertaken will also be submitted by the NCPC to the Government and will be available in the public domain.
“Some sectors have successfully imbibed a competition culture, several other sectors still witness weak competition. As overarching policy framework seeks to harmonise these efforts, which would help policy reviews by concerned authorities in relevant sectors,” the draft added.
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