New Delhi Corporate Affairs Ministry seeks to monetize the huge database of firms operating in India, which is now available on payment to users through the MCA21 portal. 100 per company, said two people aware of the growth.
The ministry has held meetings with credit rating firms, which rely on government data received from third party agencies, to evaluate the possibility.
“The data available on MCA21 is sold by third-party aggregators for the same amount as 1,500 per firm after making some value additions,” said an industry executive, who asked not to be named.
A second executive aware of the meeting with ratings firms said the ministry is looking at selling data sets in user-friendly formats, making them more valuable and accurate than the data provided by third-party aggregators. Monetization of data could become a new source of revenue generation for the ministry, which could also take the views of other stakeholders.
Queries sent to the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Affairs on Monday did not elicit a response as of press time.
The ministry is improving MCA21 and increasingly using technology to monitor compliance and improve ease of doing business. It expects that the website upgrade will enable faster data analysis and discovery of compliance-related trends from over 1.4 million active firms and over 220,000 limited-liability partnerships. Early detection of trends, such as premature abandonment by auditors, is expected to help improve regulatory oversight and policy making.
Mint reported last year that the ministry was also forming a team of researchers to look into compliance trends.
The new version of MCA21 will integrate with the systems of other financial and corporate sector regulators, exchanging data and alerting authorities in case of breaches. Further, when required, it will allow the ministry to conduct compliance enforcement drives and automate electronic notices to defaulters.
MCA21 version 3.0 is expected to be launched and deployed in phases and includes company and LLP modules, e-decision, e-consultation, e-book, learning management and compliance management system powered by data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning Will be