Ease index for states

Centre to rate states on the basis of ease of business

New Delhi, March 20: The government has proposed to give rating to states on the basis of ease of doing business in the country, Parliament was informed on Friday.

“A detailed document on action to be taken on various measures of ease of doing business by states with specific timelines was prepared and circulated to all states/UTs,” commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

She said that the states would be rated on nine parameters — setting up a business; land and building; environment compliances; labour compliances; infrastructure related utilities; finance and tax; inspection reforms; enforcing contract and exiting a business.

These action points were discussed and finalised at the national workshop on ‘Make in India’ in December last year.

“All the state governments/UTs have been requested to complete these reform measures against the indicated timelines on the 98 action points.”

“Further, each state has been requested to complete the recommended action points within the identified timelines so that the state is not ranked poorly in sub-national study,” she said.

India has been ranked 142 among the 189 countries in the World Bank report on ease of doing business.

It has dropped two places from its previous ranking. The gov- ernment is making efforts to improve the ranking and bring it within the 50th position.

In addition, department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) secretary Amitabh Kant said at a CII event that, “This is part of our effort to put an evaluation system in place to identify the Best Performing State, and for that matter, the ‘Worst Performing States’,”. — PTI