New firms hit as site for registration down since a week

At a time when the country is being looked at as a hot destination for new ventures and several overseas entrepreneurs are looking to establish businesses here the Registrar of Companies ROC server is down since over a week This has adversely affected those who wish to register new businesses in the country as they need to register themselves with the website and provide details like proposed name of the company proposed directorsrsquo details proposed registered address of the firmcompany etc This forms the first step towards setting up the company Corporate lawyer K P Shreejit of Ms IndiaLaw has been trying to get his clientsrsquo company registered with ROC since the past 12 days u00a0Every time he tries he is told that the server is down ldquoWe have been told that the server was manned by Tata Consultancy Services TCS earlier but now the Ministry of Corporate Affairs have switched over and that is leading to the issuerdquo he said u00a0ldquoImagine the losses that firms and corporates have to incur daily due to this technical glitch Many activities related to ROC including incorporation of new companies have come to a haltrdquou00a0 Business affected Rajni Choksi Vice Chairman of Western Indian Regional Council of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India said ldquoThe entire daytoday operation of firms across the country isaffected since the last few days due to the server issue u00a0Eversince the entire system has become online in 2006 all furnishing of statutory forms under The Companies Act 1956 has to be done through ROC online and a delay in submission of the forms also attracts penalty The worst part is u00a0that every time we contact ROC we are told that the work is in progress and that the same will be sorted out shortly u00a0They should understand that the firms are incurring losses on a daily basis Right from formation of a company to its daily functioning is getting affectedrdquou00a0 Reason for delay Anil Kumar Bhardwaj Director eGovernance project for Ministry of Corporate Affairs Delhi is incharge for the entire project Though he was unavailable for comment senior officials attached to the MCA confirmed to MiD DAY that ROC servers across India were affected ldquoThe TCS contract was for five years which ended in 2012 As per the government procedure fresh bids were called for and the rates quoted by another company were comparatively cheaper than other bidders including TCS and hence the contract has been allotted to themrdquo said a senior official ldquoAlso there were certain technical glitches which were brought to our notice by users earlier We are sorting all those issues that will result in better speed and service for the end usersrdquo he added Work in progress When asked by when would the issue be solved he said ldquoThe technical team is working on the issues and it would surely get sorted out soonrdquo Vijay Mukhi cyber expert said ldquoThings like this happen when mdash at times mdash we need to upgrade the software on the server However one should do it in such a way that the end user should have no knowledge at all and the down time has to be zero When TCS left they gave a working server the new software company should have carried all their tests in the background and just moved over This is not a technical glitch and this is not supposed to happenrdquou00a0 Case study M P Sajeev 49 and his partners are struggling to get their proposed company registered with ROC Mumbai but due to a server issue they are unable to get the proposed company name or director details approved They can have the digital signature for the directors submitted to ROC only after they get an approval for company name Sajeev said ldquoWe are setting up an hospitality company in Thiruvananthapuram with our registered office in Mumbai to cater to theu00a0IT companies likely to u00a0come up in Techno Park Thiruvananthapuram We had planned to commence our business from April 2013 but with every delay in getting the basics in place we are seriously worriedrdquo u00a0