THE NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY, BHOPAL AND RAJIV GANDHI PROUDYOGIKI VISHWAVIDYALAYA, BHOPAL

Collaborative program jointly offers

MASTER OF SCIENCE
In

CYBER LAW AND INFORMATION SECURITY

ASSIGNMENT, PAPER I
on

MCA 21
Submitted toMr. Atul Pandey Submitted ByDeepansh P. Srivastava MSCLIS 00002

Introduction
As part of the Governments commitment to governance reforms, MCA21 program has been designated as the flagship Electronic Governance initiative of the Government of India under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). This outcome-based program from the Ministry of Company Affairs (MCA) aims at fulfilling the aspirations of its stakeholders in the 21st century through adoption of a service-centric approach. The bottom-line of this unique initiative is the improved speed and certainty in the delivery of MCA services. This improvement is primarily enabled through the mechanism of secure electronic Filing (e-Filing) for all the services provided by the Registrar of Companies (ROC) including incorporation of a company, annual filing, registration of charges and other event based filings. The vision of this e-governance plan was: "Make all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets, and ensure efficiency, transparency, and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man".

About MCA 21
Ministry of Company Affairs (MCA), Government of India (GoI) has initiated MCA21 program, for easy and secure access to MCA services in a manner that best suits the businesses and citizens. The program goals have been set as follows keeping in mind stakeholders' needs:

Business enabled to register a company and file statutory documents quickly and easily Public to get easy access to relevant records and effective grievances redressal Professionals to be able to offer efficient services to their client companies Financial Institutions to easily find charges registration and verification Employees to ensure proactive and effective compliance of relevant laws and corporate governance

MCA21 is envisioned to provide anytime and anywhere services to businesses. It is a pioneering program being the first mission mode egovernance project being undertaken in the country. This program builds on the GoI vision to introduce a Service Oriented Approach in the design and delivery of Government services, establish a healthy business ecosystem and make the country globally competitive.

Scope
MCA21 program will provide for anytime anywhere electronic services with speed and certainty to all the stakeholders. It will include:

Design and development of application system Setting up of IT infrastructure Setting up the Digital Signature/PKI delivery mechanisms and associated security requirements

Setting up of Physical Front Offices (PFOs) Setting up of temporary FOs for the peak periods to meet with the requirements and subsequent shutdown of temporary FOs at the end of such peak periods

Migrating legacy data and digitization of paper documents to the new system Providing MCA services to all MCA21 stakeholders in accordance with the Service Oriented Approach

Providing user training at all levels and all offices (Front and Back Offices)

The MCA21 is designed to automate processes related to the proactive enforcement and compliance of the legal requirements under the Companies Act, 1956. However, it does not include processes related to OL.

Benefits of MCA 21
MCA21 seeks to fulfill the requirements of the various stakeholders. The key benefits of MCA21 project are The back office process relates to:

Expeditious incorporation of companies

Simplified and ease of convenience in filing of Forms/ Returns Better compliance management Total transparency through e-Governance Customer centric approach Increased usage of professional certificate for ensuring authenticity and reliability of the Forms / Returns

Building up a centralised database repository of corporate operating Enhanced service level fulfillment Inspection of public documents of companies anytime from anywhere Registration as well as verification of charges anytime from anywhere Timely redressal of investor grievances Availability of more time for MCA employees for monitoring and supervision

Success of MCA21

The accomplishments of the McA 21 can be presented under the following heads: a. Providing access to citizens/stakeholders (G2C services): Section 610 of the companies Act, 1956 allows inspection of documents kept by the Registrars of companies by the various stakeholders on payment of statutory fees. After the implementation of McA 21, this has become history. Presently, nearly 5 crore pages of legacy records consisting of permanent documents of companies (MOA, AOA, subsisting charge documents etc.) and Annual Returns and balance Sheets for a period of two years preceding have been scanned, digitized and made a part of the McA 21 electronic Registry. The electronic Registry has been further enriched with the e-fling of all the documents in various Registries with effect from the dates of roll-out of the programme and further mandated for the entire country with effect from September 16, 2006. Accordingly, the facility of inspection of documents granted under Section 610 of the companies Act, 1956 has been converted into the facility of View Public Documents under the McA 21. Further, keeping in view that not all legacy records were scanned and digitized, a facility of on -demand scanning has been provided. Under this facility, a stakeholder can request for certain documents (subject to availability) to be scanned and made available online.

b. G2B

services: Companies are required to interface with the Registrar of companies

(ROcs), the Regional Directors (RDs) and the Union Government in accordance with various provisions of the companies Act. Prior to the implementation of McA 21, all flings by the companies were in physical paper mode requiring a stakeholder or his representative to physically visit these offices or send the same by post. Handling large volumes of paper was a major problem and there were complaints on account of all sorts of undesirable practices such as loss of paper documents, ante-dated flings, replacement of statutory documents etc. A check on the quality of flings (correct and complete information) had virtually become impossible. Under McA 21, various Forms have been re-engineered and converted into electronic Forms (e-Forms) to make them compatible with the e-Governance processes. The e-Forms have been designed with the in-built pre-fill feature whereby the data in the required fields is captured from the database available in the electronic registry in an automated manner. Requirements of repetitive data entry have been significantly reduced. The process of electronic filing also incorporates the facility of pre-scrutiny of the e-Form. This is a completely electronic process where the system verifies if the Form is complete in respect of mandatory fields. This is, however, limited to such checks as can be performed by the computerized system. Secondly, the system of payment of statutory fees has been re-engineered as a part of the overall process. In addition to the conventional challan-based of-line payment system in the pre-McA 21 system, online payment systems have been introduced, including use of digital signatures based on a Director Identification Number (DIN) database. Third, services are now available on a 24 X 7 X 365 time frame. The outcome is that record management is automatic, digital records have largely replaced paper records and there is no question of ante-date flings or loss or substitution of documents. Elements of speed, certainty and integrity in fling of documents are in place. c. G2G services and linkages: The architecture of McA 21 has been designed to meet future challenges and scalability. It is capable of sharing information with other Government Departments/ Ministries/ Regulators in the corporate Sector and introduction of joined-up services in due course. Presently, free access to company documents having been allowed to the following organisations: i. Reserve bank of India; ii. Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND);

iii. Department of Economic Affairs; iv. Intelligence bureau; and v. Central Statistical Organisation. Access has been permitted to designated officers in these offices through a secure DSc based login. Once the other Departments implement their e-Governance programmes, and the NSDG develops the national Gateway, the McA 21 system can be linked with more organizations. The implementation of McA 21 has provided an enabling environment for stakeholders to approach Government for seeking a complete basket of services in an easy and transparent manner. The implementation of e-Governance has also enabled plugging the leakages. Further, the stakeholder is now in a position to track the transaction status at every stage; from making payment to the processing and ultimately the approval status. The time taken in delivery of services has shown remarkable improvement.

Failure of MCA 21
Quoted as one of the principal e-governance projects in the country, the MCA had begun to use electronic databases, thanks to the National Informatics Center, but it was piecemeal computerization and failed to address most issues. There was a need for a "holistic program with service delivery concept," says Y.S. Malik, Joint secretary, MCA. In 2002, the MCA, along with the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Smart Governance and a team of financial professionals and bureaucrats, began a year-long study of the process of regulatory filings. The study resulted in an exhaustive, four-volume compendium that laid out a roadmap for the MCA21 program, and recommended far-reaching business process re-engineering, Malik says. The NISG conducted the technological evaluation and picked Tata Consultancy Services to implement the project across the MCA's 40 field offices, four regional directorates and 20 Registrar of Companies. Under the agreement, TCS will run it on a BOOT - build, own, operate and transfer - basis before handing it to the ministry after six years. Tanmoy Chakrabarty, a vice president at TCS who oversaw the technological deployment and training, says the company took only 77 weeks to develop and implement the program in its entirety. This included

digitization of about 45 million paper documents in MCA's archives, setting up a main data center in New Delhi and a disaster recovery center in Chennai. Apart from that, building the computing infrastructure, setting up 52 facilitation centres, designing the application software and setting up secure electronic payment gateways, were part of the list. Also, When Project MCA-21 is implemented, people are less aware of on-line filing or efiling. The use of internet is also not very easy for a common man. So it is not used as desire by the authority but as the time goes people understand its important and try to use this technology. Some of the reason that why it is not used on it full modes are as follows: 1. Project Definition Lack of a solid project plan, Undefined objectives and goals -Inadequate planning and poor containment of the project scope 2. Scope - Meeting end user expectations / business benefits - No Change Control System 3. 4. Cost Time Poor project estimations and overruns of schedule and cost Unrealistic timeframes and tasks and lack of prioritization - Lack of management commitment -Infrequent communication between project units and other stakeholders -Lack of skills, inadequate testing processes and not meeting expectations

5.

Communication

6.

Quality

Conclusion
The induction of information technology into governance, especially at the rural level, is not an easy task due to unstructured nature of rural development, low literacy levels and reluctance to adopt information technology. Regional disparities which were already glaring in poverty, employment generation, literacy are widening further. E-governance will be successful only if we start to undertake due efforts to implement it in all blocks and districts and spread it to the grass root level. Being the largest democratic country, India must show an example to other in this context. But in last many years we have not seen the efficiency of public servants, who are supposed to be the some of the best brain of India. For attaining developed status our public

service system must work in a better way. Citizen must participate in various activities, if we really want to see India as a developed nation. Public service must be strengthened in India in true spirit, if we want to become to become a developed nation in near future.