Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, inaugurated the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) Regional Office (West) in Mumbai, here today in a virtual event. Union Minister of State for Ministry of Corporate Affairs Shri Rao Inderjit Singh also graced the occasion with his presence via video conference.
The Regional Office (West) in Mumbai is the third regional office opened by CCI, after Regional Office (South) in Chennai (inaugurated in February 2021) and Regional Office (East) in Kolkata (inaugurated in April 2022).
In her address, Smt. Sitharaman, congratulated CCI for opening regional office in Mumbai and remarked that easy access of CCI to businesses is important for facilitating ease of doing business. The Finance Minister also complimented CCI for publishing its advocacy booklets in various regional languages and added that such steps empower people in having better access to the regulator. On rapidly evolving digital markets, Smt. Sitharaman stressed on the need to address the competition issues arising out of them, by benchmarking against best practices at the global level. The Finance Minister said that a proactive CCI brings in confidence in the minds of people who want to access it for relief and will help people well prior to issues going out of hand.
On this occasion, Smt. Sitharaman also released a pictorial e-publication titled “Competition Commission of India – A Journey Through the Years, 2009 – 2022”, which documents the formative years of CCI and takes stock of the various measures, events and actions that have helped shape this journey. The Finance Minister also released CCI’s competition advocacy booklets translated in Urdu and Punjabi languages. These Booklets, contain information on topics such as – How to File information with CCI, Cartels, Bid Rigging, Abuse of Dominance, Combinations, Leniency etc. Apart from Urdu and Punjabi languages, these booklets have also been earlier translated into 11 other languages i.e. Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Assamese, Gujarati, and Odia, Hindi and English.
During the event, Shri Ashok Kumar Gupta, Chairperson CCI remarked that in a country as vast and diverse as India, setting up regional offices has been a key step towards competition enforcement. He highlighted that CCI’s presence at the financial hub of the country will provide ease of accessibility to numerous stakeholders, augment advocacy outreach in this region, and fulfil a longstanding demand of stakeholders.
The event concluded with a vote of thanks, delivered by Smt. Jyoti Jindgar Bhanot, Secretary (I/c), CCI.