DIPP Is Preparing State Ranking Of Business-Friendly Reforms

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DIPP Is Preparing State Ranking Of Business-Friendly Reforms

The two years of Modi government has witnessed a number of reforms in the industrial sector, aimed at improving the ease of doing business. In fact, the PM had made World Bank's Doing Business report the basis for its reforms, and the foundation of the Make In India campaign. With the result that in DB 2016 report, we saw that India has moved slightly closer to the frontier. India now ranks 130th in Ease of Doing Business, compared to 134th in 2015.

The DIPP listed out the work done towards easing the country's business environment.

1. Building byelaws have been notified

2. Online tax payments

3. Government verifications, inspections have been pruned, reducing bureaucratic delays

4. Government has fast tracked approvals

5. Paperwork has been simplified

6. Number of department touchpoints have been significantly reduced

7. For exports and imports too, procedures have been simplified and digitized

8.Customs clearance facilities are round the clock at some of the major ports, with more being added gradually

DIPP is now working on ranking the states on their business friendly initiatives. Data from various states is still coming in. But, from the data already available, Bihar seems to have done the most to improve ease of doing business. Bihar is at the top among all the states and Union Territories in terms of steps taken to improve ease of doing business. Nitish Kumar-led Bihar is followed by Telangana and Jharkhand on a ranking being done on real-time basis by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) on business reforms and action plans. Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka are fourth and fifth, respectively, in the ranking. Bihar is leading the list with a score of 8.53%. In last year's final rankings, Bihar was at 21st position. DIPP has stated that uploading and validation of reforms by states are underway and therefore "results and rankings displayed on this are highly dynamic". "Results may change frequently during this process. Final results will be available once the process is complete," it said.

To improve the business environment in the country, the Modi government started the practice of ranking states on their business-friendly initiatives last year. Gujarat was ranked on the top among states, on the ease of doing business index prepared by the World Bank but at present, on the real time basis, the state is placed at sixth position. The evaluation is being done based on 340 parameters as against 91 last year. States and Union Territories will upload the status of completed reforms by June 15. After that the DIPP with the help of World Bank will come out with the final rankings. As of now, 16 states have provided details about reform measures initiated by them through the DIPP-managed portal. Among them, Bihar has given information on as many as 29 reforms - the highest among the 16 states. The moment other states report their respective reforms to the DIPP, the rankings could change. DIPP Secretary Ramesh Abhishek in a tweet said, "States are in the process of uploading ease of doing business reforms done by them on DIPP portal. Ranking will happen in July after validation".