Next ranking of states for ease of doing business likely to be released in Mar

PTI, Jan 7, 2020, 5:14 PM IST

New Delhi: The Commerce and Industry Ministry is likely to release the next index to rank states and union territories (UTs) in terms of ease of doing business in March, a senior official said.

“It will be released at the end of February or March. Due to elections, the release got delayed,” the official said.

The exercise is aimed at triggering competition among states to improve the business climate in order to attract domestic and global investors.

State governments are taking several steps such as setting up a single-window system for approvals to improve ease of doing business.

The parameters include areas such as construction permit, labour regulation, environmental registration, access to information, land availability and single window system.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in collaboration with the World Bank conducts an annual reform exercise for all States/UTs under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP).

In the last ranking released in July 2018, Andhra Pradesh topped the chart. Telangana and Haryana were at the second and third positions, respectively.

Others in the top ten were Jharkhand (4), Gujarat (5), Chhattisgarh (6), Madhya Pradesh (7), Karnataka (8), Rajasthan (9) and West Bengal (10).

The ranking is based on a combined score consisting of reform evidence score that is based on evidence uploaded by States/UTs and feedback score that is based on response garnered from actual users of services provided to businesses.

The report to be released this year will rank states for 2018.

In the World Bank’s latest ‘Doing Business’ report, India’s position improved to 63rd from 77th out of 190 economies.

The Commerce and Industry Ministry has prepared a blueprint to further improve India’s ranking in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index with a focus on six parameters, including enforcing contracts and starting a business.

The government is targeting to take India among top 50 in the index in the coming years.