The Centre has asked the World Bank to rank states on the ease of doing business for the next three years, as it strives to ensure a high level of professionalism in and non-partisan nature of such an exercise, according to a senior government official.
This time, the role of the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) in this exercise will mostly be limited to facilitating the interactions between states and the World Bank, the official said.
Last year, when states were ranked for the first time, based on measures taken by them to ensure the ease of doing business, DIPP, industry chambers CII and FICCI, and consultancy firm KPMG — apart from the World Bank — were involved in the rigourous exercise.
The decision has been taken, considering the fact that the World Bank has the professional expertise to handle this exercise in the best possible manner, as it has been doing the rankings of countries on the ease of doing business, he added.
States have been asked to submit by June 30 relevant details on over 300 issues, including steps to expedite environmental clearances. The final ranking for 2016 is expected by August.
The rankings are an assessment of the regulatory performance in states and a measure of how they improve over a period of time. The ranking is based on indicators, including the ease of starting a business, registering a property, getting credit, paying taxes and resolving insolvency.
Importantly, this study doesn’t accurately reflect the level of business-conducive nature of the states — rather, it shows how the states fared in implementing action plan adopted by them with the help of the Centre.
Previous year, Gujarat topped the states in implementing an ‘action plan’ on the ease of doing business, followed by Andhra Pradesh and (surprisingly) Jharkhand. The NDA-ruled states occupied the top six slots.