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India will get a report that ranks States according to the ‘ease of doing business’ vetted by the World Bank in order to avoid accusations of bias from States that fare poorly.
“We have finalised the report from our end, but it will now be sent for international vetting as we want to avoid controversies,” confirmed an official from the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP).
The DIPP has evaluated States on various parameters that assess the ease of doing business and ranked them accordingly.
A similar exercise carried out by the erstwhile UPA government generated controversy and embarrassment for then Commerce & Industry Minister Anand Sharma as Gujarat, which was headed by Narendra Modi at the time, was among the best performing States.
Good performance Other States lauded for their good performance in select areas included Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Punjab.
This initiative is part of the exercise to improve India’s overall ranking in the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ index.
Aiming for acceptability
“Once it is certified that the parameters used for the ranking and the process itself meet global standards, there can be no finger-pointing,” the official added. The eight areas based on which States have been ranked are: setting up a business, allotment of land and obtaining a construction permit, complying with environmental procedures, complying with labour regulations, obtaining infrastructure-related utilities, registering and complying with tax procedures, carrying out inspections and enforcing contracts.
Healthy competition The idea behind the analysis is to create competition on ease of doing business among the States to attract investors, says the DIPP.
Investors will get a fair idea about the best and worst performing States in the selected areas and base their investment decisions accordingly.
“We expect the process of international vetting to take another two-three weeks following which the report will be made public,” the official said.
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