MHA gave clearance to 6,200 proposals in past 2 years

The Home Ministry has given security clearance to more than 6,200 proposals, including 134 foreign direct investment plans, in the past two years in critical sectors such as defence, civil aviation and telecom, the government told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir informed the Lower House that in the past two years, the ministry gave security clearance to more than 1,600 proposals in critical sectors like defence, arms and ammunition, explosives, telecommunications, information and broadcasting, civil aviation, currency, shipping, etc.

The ministry also disposed of more than 4,600 security clearance requests including 134 of foreign direct investment in government approval route requiring a security clearance, he said in a written reply to a question.

Average processing time for such clearance was about 71 days in 2018, he said.

Ahir said as per information provided by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the Reserve Bank of India, the FDI through automatic route is under general permission and can be received without any approval, in compliance with the Foreign Exchange Management (Transfer or issue of security by a person resident outside India) Regulation, 2017.

"No information is available about the number of proposals received for FDI under the automatic route. Therefore, information related to the percentage in terms of the number of FDI proposals coming through the automatic route is not available," he said.