Nearly 31,000 companies have remained traceless for more than 15 years after they registered with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC), official data showed.
According to the state-run entity, a company or firm, after its formation, must submit returns including balance sheet (profit and loss account), director's position and shares and auditor consent to the primary regulator.
But some 30,988 firms never submitted their returns to the RJSC in the last 15 years, the data revealed.
The state-run entity, however, strikes off a company/firm if it is not in operation any more.
The RJSC first serves notice on any company or firm asking them to submit their returns to it before striking off them from its list, a senior RJSC official said.
If the company/firm does not respond to the notices, the state-run entity later issues two gazette notifications for striking off the company/firm concerned.
But the companies have the option to submit their returns paying late fees as per the existing policy.
"RJSC is facing a manpower shortage while the number of new firms seeking registration is rising day by day," RJSC registrar (additional secretary) Md Zakir Hossain told the FE.
For this, he said, they avoid the issue with intent to carry out regular activities of RJSC smoothly. Fees for submitting returns have increased significantly in recent times, he mentioned.
People familiar with the issue told the FE that the government has to count losses if RJSC refrains from taking action against the firms/companies who have not been submitting their returns for long.
But most of them have been operating business in the country, they added.
The supervisory body is currently facing the problem of operating its routine work. The authorities concerned are well aware of the manpower shortage.
RJSC has a shortage of required staff members. It has requested the commerce ministry to fill vacancies.
The rush for registration of companies, partnership businesses, societies and trade organisations is increasing gradually.
To do the job smoothly, RJSC is badly in need of adequate manpower.
So far a total of 235,546 companies got registered with the state entity, according to the RJSC statistics.
Of them, the number of private limited companies is 167,802, followed by public limited companies 3,496, foreign companies 887, partnership firms 47,525, societies 14,733 and trade organisations 1,102.
As many as 9,000 new firms/companies, on an average, are registered with the entity per year.
RJSC is struggling to deliver smooth services taking a backlog of applications to 0.151 million due to lack of automation.
