Ease of Doing Business ranking of states and union territories

Ease of Doing Business ranking of states and union territories

Subject: Economy

Section: Regulation

Context:

Seven states among top achievers in ‘ease of doing business’ ranking of states and UTs

Details:

• Seven states – Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Telangana and Tamil Nadu – were categorised as ‘top achievers’.
• Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh are the other states categorised as “achievers”.
• Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir – were ’emerging business ecosystems’.
• Seven states – Goa, Assam, Kerala, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bengal – were categorised as ‘Aspirers’.
• Feedback could not be obtained for Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep and Ladakh due to insufficient User Data.

Concept:

• It is a joint initiative by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and the World Bank to improve the overall business environment in the States.
• Ranking of all the States and Union Territories is done, based on the implementation of Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) by them.
• DPIIT since 2014 has been assessing States/UTs based on their performance in implementation of prescribed reforms in Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) exercise. Till date, assessments of States/UTs have been released for the years 2015, 2016, 2017-18 and 2019.
• BRAP 2019 contains a list of 80 reforms (187 reform action points) to be implemented by 19 State departments. These reforms cover 12 business regulatory areas such as Access to Information, Single Window System, Labour, Environment, etc.
• The broader aim is to boost investor confidence, foster business friendly climate and augment Ease of Doing Business across the country by introducing an element of healthy competition through a system of assessing states based on their performance in the implementation of Business Reforms Action Plan.
• Thelatest Ease of Doing Business ranking of states and union territories, based on the Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) 2020 report, was released by the Union finance minister.
• The BRAP 2020 includes 301 reform points covering 15 business regulatory areas such as Access to Information, Single Window System, Labour, Environment, Land Administration & Transfer of Land and Property, Utility Permits and others.
  • 118 new reforms were included to further augment the reform process. Sectoral reforms with 72 action points spread across 9 sectors namely Trade License, Healthcare, Legal Metrology, Cinema Halls, Hospitality, Fire NOC, Telecom, Movie Shooting and Tourism were introduced for the first time to expand the scope of the reform agenda.
• This year states have been placed under the four categories viz. Top Achievers, Achievers, Aspirers and Emerging Business Ecosystems.
• The assessment gives full weightage to the feedback obtained from actual users/respondents at the ground level, who provided their feedback about the effective implementation of reforms.