Ground check for biz ranking
States can’t get ranks by changes on paper
Mere policy changes and amending laws for the sake of higher rankings would no longer help states secure better rankings in Ease of Doing Business from this year.
Central teams will visit each state to see for themselves whether or not the business reforms being claimed by states are being implemented on the ground level.
Inputs from companies, investors, trade bodies, labour organisations will be collected on the reforms claimed by state governments which will play a crucial role while determining the final rankings.
In 2015, Telangana state was ranked 13 in EoBD but topped the charts the very next year, dethroning Gujarat. The AP government, ranked No. 2 in 2015, shared the top spot along with Telangana state.
The Centre’s department of industrial policy and promotion had given rankings to states in 2016 based on 340 action points, which the state governments need to fulfill to get ranks.
The states just needed to fill the details online on whether or not they were complying with each of the 340 points and upload documents to support their claims.
There was no mechanism to check whether the states actually complied with the reforms. This led to mad rush between states to secure better rankings.
The competition turned ugly with the Telangana state government complaining to the Centre that AP had committed “data theft” from its portal to secure a better EoDB ranking. The AP government dismissed the allegations saying that as a state ranked second, it had no need to copy data from TS, which at that point was ranked 13.
TS chief secretary S.P. Singh, who reviewed the new EoDB ranking system with officials recently, said, “The DIPP has mooted a New Business Reform Action Plan for 2016-17 covering 13 Secretariat departments and 27 HoDs. All the departments have been directed to ensure the reforms to be implemented at the ground level. The number of action points on which states will be judged have been decreased to 294 this year against 340 last year.”
He said four new departments and eight heads of departments had been added to the list this year.