MORE than 1.85 lakh companies were registered in the country last fiscal, higher than the count recorded in the year-ago period, and nearly 16,600 companies were set up in March this year, according to official data. As per the data, 1,59,524 companies were registered with a collective paid up capital of Rs 18,132.16 crore in 2022-23. At the end of March 2024, the country had a total number of 26,63,016 companies and out of them, 16,91,495 companies or 64 per cent were active.

 

As many as 9,31,644 registeredcompanieswereclosed, 2,470 were dormant entities and 10,385 companies were under liquidation. A total of 27,022 companies were under the process of being struck off from official records. During FY 2023-24, a total of 1,85,312 companies were registered with a collective paid up capital of Rs 30,927.40crore,accordingto the Corporate Affairs Ministry’s information bulletin for March. Out of them, 71 per cent were in the services sector, followed by 23 percentinthe industrial segmentand6 per cent in agriculture.

 

“Broader economic activity-wiseclassificationreveals that community, personal andsocial services observed thehighestriseof11per cent in the service sector as compared with FY 2022-23,” it said. The Ministry is implementingtheCompaniesAct, 2013. Interms of States, 17.6 per cent of the new companies were set up in Maharashtra in 2023-24. “There is an increase of 0.10per centinthe totalproportion of active companies w.r.t registered companies whencomparedtoFebruary 2024,” the bulletin said. AsonMarch31,2024,there were a total of 5,164 foreign companies registered in the country and out of them, 3,288 companies or 64 per cent were active. InMarch,thebulletinsaid 42,041DirectorIdentification Numbers were registered. “Out of the total number of directors registered in India in March 2024, 67 per cent were male and the remaining 33 per cent were female... 43 per cent of newlyregistereddirectorsbelong to the age group of 31-45 years. “Furthermore, 7 per cent of the new director registrations were older than 60 years,” the bulletin said.