On Saturday, September 5, 2020, the Business Reforms Action Plan 2019 released the latest ranks of states and union territories in the ease of doing business. Andhra Pradesh secured the 1st rank in implementation of these reforms in business, for the third consecutive year. Due to the general polls, the ranks were not disclosed in 2018.

These ranks are a result of the comments made by the stakeholders on the various reform measures taken in by the states, not the mixed reviews of their verified claims and the feedback given by the user. This is an important concept acquired from the World Bank in the ease of doing business. A total of 35,000 users had been consulted to comment on approximately 180 reform measures for this ranking plan.

Remaining one of the best performers among the other states, Uttar Pradesh was able to secure the 2nd position by moving 10 notches up from its previous rank. As per the Business Reforms Action Plan 2017, Haryana was at the 3rd position followed by Punjab at the 5th rank. However, they have now come down to the 16th and 10th positions, respectively.

The World Bank is responsible for this ranking system with the Department for the Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) acts as a conciliator between the states and the bank.

Among 36 states and Union Territories, New Delhi has been able to improve its ranking by 11 notches to the 12th position in the World Bank survey for the ease of doing business. This is a positive transformation for the country, as India’s ranking had been weighed down for several years due to the abysmal performance of New Delhi, even after being at the 63rd position in the world ranking.

Nirmala Sitharaman – the Finance Minister of India made a statement – “India’s commitment to reform is taken seriously by investors abroad and they take India to be a very desirable destination, otherwise, we wouldn’t be seeing a good amount of FDI coming even during the pandemic time when India, as many of our critics would say, had the strictest lockdown.” She also said that for the April-July quarter of this Financial Year, the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) made in India was about $20 billion.

The Aatmanirbhar Bharat policy will make India better in terms of competitiveness in the field of trade and the quality of export-import, as per Sitharaman.

“We are looking at a digital platform where all central, state and local approvals get captured on a single website through a single payment gateway, thereby further improving the ease of doing business.”- said the Industry and Commerce Minister-Piyush Goyal.

The ranking system of the ease of business defines the progress made by the various states in fulfilling their commitments towards the adopted reforming strategies within a particular time period with the help of the Central government. It also elaborates on the inclination of states and union territories to attract investors and improve their business plans.

The reform issues addressed in this ranking criteria were as follows – access to information, transparency, environmental registration, single-window facilities, land availability, dispute resolution, contract enforcement, construction permit, labour regulations, inspection reforms, and online tax-returns filing.

In 2015, the average score based on these rankings was 32%, which has rapidly elevated to 62% by 2019.

Low-income states have also performed well in this year’s ranking with Uttar Pradesh securing the 2nd position, followed by Madhya Pradesh at rank 4, Jharkhand being at the 5th spot, and Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan securing the 6th and 8th positions, respectively.

A GIS-enabled national land bank portal has been introduced by Goyal where beyond 3,275 industrial clusters, 4.2 lakh hectares of land have already been mapped, leaving approximately 1.13 lakh hectares of land for the investors.