The Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba on September 18, 2018 launched an online portal – ‘e-Sahaj’ for grant of security clearance to private firms. The portal will enable individuals and private companies to submit applications and view their status online.
The introduction of the online portal is expected to make the process of security clearance much faster, transparent and easy to monitor. The various functionaries would be able to access the application and documents online and take timely decisions. |
Key Highlights
• The Ministry of Home Affairs recently streamlined the Security Clearance procedures and issued a fresh set of guidelines.
• A committee of officers meets every week in the Ministry for a timely decision on security clearance proposals.
• The Ministry has cleared about 1,100 cases of security clearance in the past one year.
• Even though the given timeline is 90 days, the Home Affairs Ministry attempts to decide the security clearance cases in 60 days with the average time taken per case so far being 53 days in 2018. The time duration is being reduced even further.
• In 2016, there were 209 cases which were over 6 months old; the number came down to 154 in 2017 and further down to 47 in 2018.
Background
The Home Affairs Ministry is the nodal Ministry for security clearances in certain sensitive sectors before the issue of licence, permit, permission or contract to companies, bidders and individuals by the administrative ministry.
The objective of national security clearance is to evaluate potential security threats, including economic threats and provide risk assessment before clearing investment and project proposals in key sectors.
The aim is to strike a healthy balance between meeting the imperatives of national security and facilitating ease of doing business and promoting investment in the country.
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