Question : Security Clearances

(a) whether the Government has given security clearance to more than 1071 proposals in 11 critical sectors like defence, telecommunications, information and broadcasting;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether it is true that over 90 per cent of the FDI proposals have come through the automatic route and if so, the details thereof;

(d) whether the Government has granted security go ahead to over 4,600 foreign investment proposals in the past four years and if so, the details thereof; and

(e) whether the average processing time for such clearance has been reduced to 50 days from four months and if so, the details thereof?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS
(SHRI HANSRAJ GANGARAM AHIR)
(a) & (b): Ministry of Home Affairs has given security clearance to more than 1600 proposals in the past two years in critical sectors like defence, arms & ammunition, explosives, telecommunications,
information and broadcasting, civil aviation, currency, shipping, etc.


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L.S.US.Q NO. 1425 FOR 12.02.2019
(c): As per information provided by Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion and Reserve Bank of India, 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 automatic route. Therefore, information related to percentage in terms of number of FDI proposals coming through the automatic route is not available.
(d): Ministry of Home Affairs has disposed of more than 4,600 security clearance proposals including 134 proposals of foreign direct investment in Government approval route requiring security clearance of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
(e): Average processing time for such clearance was about 71 days in 2018.
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