BOI is working on Zero Time To Start (ZTTS), Policy in collaboration with the World Bank Group. NOCs are issued by government agencies, departments, or individuals to declare that they have no objection to the mentioned details in the document. NOCs are frequently used as requirements for employment, trade, litigation, immigration, and other purposes to nullify any objection by the parties concerned in the process. NOCs are not authorizations themselves, but just requirements for authorizations that might need the involvement of more than one administrative or regulatory unit. They have no regulatory function, but just an administrative role but place regulatory and administrative burden on businesses by adding number of processes and time.
Major contours of ZTTS Policy are as under: –
- Replacing NOC regime with Compliance Verification Process (CVP) which will promote “Self-Declaration” by the businesses.
- Adoption of Risk-based approach for treating businesses according to risk posed by the business activity.
- Digitizing and integrating the NOCs and Inspection regime on a central single ZTTS Portal.
- Adoption of Pakistan Standard Industrial Code (PSIC) as a uniform classification across the board to identify business activities.
It is also pertinent to mention that Government of Punjab is leading ZTTS initiative and the same is being adopted in Federal Government with few changes. In this regard, Stakeholder comments were requested by circulating the draft of policy.