Odisha gears up to better ease of doing biz ranking 

Bhubaneswar: Perturbed at a poor ranking in implementing business reforms, the state machinery is now on its toes for furthering the ‘ease of doing business’ reforms through implementation of Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) for the year 2020-21.

Odisha was ranked as one of the worst performing states in implementing the ‘State Business Reform Action Plan 2019’. As per the ranking of states released recently, Odisha has secured 29th position in terms of implementing business reforms.

Reviewing the progress in business reforms introduced by different departments at Lok Seva Bhawan here, Monday, Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy directed the officials to enhance the user base of online government-to-business (G2B) services.

He directed the departments to make all BRAP scheduled G2B services online with payment gateways. The departments were asked to stop offline delivery of such G2B services and deliver online services within specified time frame.

The Chief Secretary also directed the departments concerned to put all online services in the framework of Odisha Right to Public Services Delivery Act and define the time limit for actual delivery of services like NOCs, licences, permissions, certificates, clearances, conversion of land category, processing of forest diversion proposals and others.

Various departments were asked to reduce compliance burden on business enterprises and industries by simplifying the norms and providing for inline compliances like filing of reports and returns.

About 301 state-level action points have been enlisted for implementation for the current year evaluation. During August, there has been substantial progress in implementation of these points. Around 136 points have already been complied by various departments, said Industry secretary Hemant Kumar Sharma.

It was decided at the meeting that remaining 165 action points will be accomplished before November 25 and 303 the district level reform points would be rolled out before October 25.

Further, Sharma said, “Mo Sarkar and 5-T doctrines of state government have been helpful in making many a services online.”

He advised all the departments to link all their G2B online service portals with Go-Swift system of IPICOL so as to make it easier for prospective investors and business enterprises.

It was also decided that the online system would enable the users to submit applications, make payment, track status of the application and download the final approval online.

As way forward, the Chief Secretary asked the departments concerned to provide evidences of ground-level implementation of each reform point with user feedback to IPICOL.  The departments were also asked to provide the list of users of online service delivery system.

District authorities were instructed to stop offline delivery of those services which have completely been made online.

The administrative departments were asked to nominate a well conversant senior officer as nodal officer to liaison with IPICOL for taking forward the ease of doing business.