New survey to rank states on ease of doing business

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SME Times News Bureau | 30 Dec, 2015
A new survey is underway to assess ease of doing business in states across the country on a 340-point basis, a top official said on Tuesday.

"Unlike the last survey conducted with the World Bank and KPMG (global financial advisory) on 100 points, the new survey is being done by our department on 340 parameters," Secretarym Industrial Policy and Promotion, Amitabh Kant told reporters at an event in Bengaluru.

Hoping Karnataka would be among top three states on ease of doing business, he said the fresh survey gave the southern state a good opportunity to climb up from ninth rank by meeting the criteria.

"We expect Karnataka to do well. The state government and enterprises should jointly do their best on the ease of doing business index to attract foreign direct investment (FDI)," Kant said after chairing an interactive session with top figures from India Inc here.

As new rankings from the survey will be released only in June, Karnataka will have to be content with its ninth position when it holds the fourth edition of its Global Investors' Meet (GIM) on February 3-5 in the city.

"Karnataka's policy makers have to take special action on all points to improve its position and emerge among top three states for attracting FDI and domestic investors," Kant reiterated.

The department's survey is also expected to "name and shame" states that under perform on ease of doing business index.

"The survey report will be sent to World Bank for assessment and objective analysis after the state governments attend to deficiencies," Kant said.

The World Bank's ease of doing business 2015 report ranked India two notches lower than last year at 142 among 189 nations.

"All-out efforts are being made to improve the country's ranking in the World Bank's ease of doing business index to be among top 50 countries by 2016," Kant added.

The survey will elicit response from enterprises across states in diverse sectors on their assessment of their respective governments on ease of doing business.

As in the previous survey, major parameters to measure ease of doing business will be on the basis of online single-window system, land availability, property registration timeline, permits and environment clearances, online tax returns filing and speedy dispute resolution mechanism.

In the World Bank assisted rankings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state Gujarat ranked top, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.