Bhopal: State to roll out single-window permissions for event managements

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Madhya Pradesh would be one of the first six states in India to implement an online application project to grant single-window permission to the event businesses.

“The licences and permissions involved in organising MICE events – Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions – are hectic and take months to finish, that too after one has visited one office to another at least dozens of times. Ease of event management is one of the most neglected businesses,” said the chief of the event management association in Madhya Pradesh.

The Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA), the apex body for the event industry in India, is working on a website to offer single-window permissions, like the National Film Development Corporation's Film Facilitation Office (FFO) have been doing for the film-makers in collaboration with ministry of commerce and industry.

“Different events require different formats and permissions and different states have different processes,” says Siddharth Chaturvedi, the head of EEMA.

Sometimes, 40 permissions from departments ranging from traffic to fire are required, says Roshan Abbas of EEMA.

“Madhya Pradesh has become one of the most event-friendly states in the past few years. Last month at least three large scale events were organised in parallel in the state capital including Chitra Bharti Film Festival, Bhopal Literature Festival and Great Indian Film and Literature Festival,” he says.

Soon after, the weekend slots were and still have been booked by stand-up artists from across India, he adds.

Hotels tend to treat an MICE operator differently from a wedding planner even though the latter is bringing you the same number of room nights, says Abbas, stating why there needs to be a separate team for the wedding sector whose tourism potential makes the Information and Broadcast ministry hopeful.

The decision was announced at the recent Dubai Expo to launch the pilot project in MP and five other states Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.