Centre eager to remove all bottlenecks for Foreign Direct Investment

New Delhi: Concerned over the economy’s sluggish growth, the Narendra Modi government is working overtime to ensure that all bottlenecks for FDI are cleared cutting across ministries and departments.

“The Union home minister’s directive on this count is very clear that no investment project file is pending with the ministry for a long time. It should be cleared, even if permission is to be denied, in a time-bound manner and that is precisely why the intelligence agencies have been asked to swing into action as sometimes the clearance comes after four to six months,” a senior ministry official said.

Once a query is rece-ived for FDI clearance by an intelligence agency from the home ministry, the primary task of the agency is to run a background check on the investor. The agencies also look into the sources of foreign funding to ensure that the investment is not part of black money or unaccounted wealth.

Most importantly, the intelligence agencies run a check on whether the investment has been done by a front company floated by the security or intelligence agency of another country. Verification is also done to ensure that no terror-related money flows into the country in the garb of foreign investment.