Andhra keeps top rank, UP makes big gain in ‘ease of doing business’
Andhra Pradesh again topped the state ranking for ease of doing business, leading Uttar Pradesh, which jumped up 10 positions, and Telangana.
The central government started ranking states based on the implementation of Business Reform Action Plan in 2015. In the fourth edition of the annual exercise, which indicates progress in digitization, transparency and investor confidence in the country, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand came in at fourth and fifth position respectively.
The single biggest jump in ‘State Business Reform Assessment 2018-19’ was witnessed by Lakshadweep, which came up by 19 places to the 15th position. Industrially advanced states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which have traditionally topped the list, slipped further down the charts to tenth, 13th and 14th positions. The government says this trend was anticipated and is expected to strengthen further as states lower down the list come up and replace the frontrunners.
However, many states also lost their ranking due to lax implementation of reforms. Poll bound Bihar went down 8 positions after making significant gains in the previous years, while West Bengal came up one position to the 9th place.
Odisha, Sikkim and Tripura remained the three states with the worst performance on the list. Odisha went down 15 positions in the latest report: the worst decline among all states.
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) created 181 reform points covering 45 business regulatory areas which were used to assess the state of ease of doing business in states and the efficacy and energy of their reforms. These included a single-window system, inspection enablers, paying taxes, utility permits, and environment, among others.
However, the biggest was access to information & transparency enablers, labour regulation-enablers and construction permit enablers.
The final ranking is based on two separate scoring systems with the majority of the assessment conducted on the basis of states providing evidence of reforms in policies and procedures undertaken by them.
