New Delhi, Oct 17 (PTI) The commerce and industry ministry has eased the mechanism for processing foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals by doing away with the requirement of sending the applications to the department of revenue.

Amending a provision in the standard operating procedure for processing of FDI proposals, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) today said that marking of proposals to the revenue department for their comments has been "discontinued" with immediate effect.

The move is aimed at further promoting ease of doing business in the country to attract overseas inflows.

Earlier all proposals were forwarded to the ministry of external affairs and the department of revenue for information.

After the abolition of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), the government came out with standard operating procedure in June.

Under this, the government would clear all foreign direct investment proposals requiring approval within a maximum of 10 weeks after the receipt of an application.

FDI into India increased by 9 per cent to USD 43.48 billion in 2016-17.

Easing of FDI proposal processing: discontinuation of referral to revenue department streamlines approvals under revised SOP. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion amended the SOP for FDI proposals to discontinue marking applications to the Department of Revenue for comment, removing a formal inter departmental referral step to streamline approvals and promote ease of doing business while retaining the centralized SOP framework and its target approval timelines.