New Delhi: The Centre Saturday conferred Andra Pradesh as the best performing state in terms of implementing business reforms.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman released the ranking of states on the basis of implementing the ‘State business reforms action plan’ Saturday.
The ‘State Business Reform Action Plan 2019’ is aimed at improving business environment by streamlining regulatory structures and simplifying procedures, digitisation of information and easing the compliance burden. It aspires to create creating an investor-friendly business climate by cutting down red tape.
As per the latest ranking, Uttar Pradesh stood second and Telangana was the third-best state in implementing business reforms in 2019.
The biggest change in the fourth edition of ranking is the way in which implementation of all reforms were measured on the ground by taking feedback from actual users. This meant that such feedback became an important cornerstone to evaluate the performance of a state on all 181 reform parameters.
Some of the reform areas where states performance was measured included, Get ting Credit, Paying Taxes, Resolving Insolvency, Construction Permits, Regis tering Property, Enforcing Contract, Starting a Business and Trading Across B orders.
Apart from best performing states, the 2019 ranking has also brought out that states such as Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Lakshadweep have shown marked improvement in their ranking over previous year. I n fact, UP improved its rank to 2 in 2019 up from 12 th position it secured i n 2018.
But states like Haryana, Odisha, Kerala, Karnataka, Bihar, Goa, Assam and surprisingly even Gujarat has been worst performing states in terms of reform initiatives in 2019 as compared to their performance in previous year. Indust rial state Maharashtra and retained 13th position, a rank that it even secur ed in 2018.
After releasing the report Finance Minister said that Centre is trying to build a competitive spirit among states through this initiative.
She pointed out that India has a credible background in implementing reforms which is one of the key reasons for FDI inflow even during the strictest period of the lockdown.
Furthermore, the FM cited that the Centre’s Atmanirbar Bharata initiative envisages the country to increase exports by becoming competitive and offering quality products.
“With a unique model of competitive and cooperative federalism and diligent work by all states, India is succeeding in emerging as an attractive investment destination as is seen in the recent surge in foreign direct investments. The industry feedback system captures the perspectives of thousands of businesses, testifying to the transparency of the process and making the rankings extremely credible and accurate. The announcements today on creating a land bank of 1 lakh hectares try and energising ease of doing business at the district level go a long way towards further instilling confidence in industry,” Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII ), said.
IANS
