Efforts being made to decriminalise provisions, reduce regulatory burden to enhance ease of doing biz: UIDAI CEO

New Delhi, Jul 7 (PTI) The government is making efforts to decriminalise various rules and reduce the regulatory burden to enhance ease of doing business in India, Aadhaar custodian Unique Identification Authority of India's CEO Saurabh Garg said on Thursday.

While speaking at CUTS International's 'The Unease of Doing Digital Business in Digital India' webinar, Garg said the digital part of the economy is disruptive by its very nature and therefore it will keep on evolving.

"I think there's a concerted effort being done to decriminalise many of the permissions. However, while keeping in view the fact that data privacy and personal privacy issues have to be kept in view, and there might need to be certain deterrent in those areas, the focus is on decriminalisation, on reducing the regulatory overburden," he said.

In a report, CUTS analysed various laws, including the IT Act and recent guidelines on intermediary platforms, to assess their impact on digital business in India.

Summarising the discussions at the webinar, Asheef Iqubbal, senior research associate at CUTS said ease of doing digital business in India is not in sync with traditional businesses in terms of policy and regulatory changes despite some progressive steps taken by the government.

"Digital businesses are not having an easy time in the current policy and regulatory environment which is complex and challenging. There are many recent examples where disproportionate liabilities are being imposed, including in IT rules, CERT-In rules etc.

"It seems policy and regulations are being developed in isolation where stakeholder's views, who will be responsible for implementing it, are not being taken into consideration," he said. PTI PRS PRS ABM ABM