After India's poor ranking in the recently-released World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report, the central government has rolled out a 295-point reform agenda for states which seeks to shorten the starting of a company in just six days, compared with an average of 26 days now, the Financial Express reported today.
The move is crucial, as India’s rank in “starting a business” in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index worsened four notches in the recently-released report from a year before to 155th among 190 nations.
This was among the worst-performing segments last year, as the country’s ranking barely improved from the previous year to 130th.
The ranking in ease of doing business is an assessment of how the states fare in implementing an action plan adopted by them with the help of the Centre within a particular time-frame.
The government’s suggestions to states include speeding up providing electricity connections in seven days under normal circumstances, compared to 15 days right now.
Similarly, it has also suggested limiting the number of processes to provide the connection to 3 from about 5 now. India’s position has already improved significantly in this respect to 26th in the latest report.
States have also been asked to expedite various licencing and compliance procedures relating to transportation, state excise, health, fertiliser and agriculture sectors.
States were given a 340-point reform agenda last year and a 98-point one in the previous year. Commerce and Industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier said while only seven states had implemented over 50 per cent of the total reform points in 2015 and no state had crossed 75 per cent, as many as 17 states exceeded the 50 per cent mark, with 16 implementing over 75 per cent of reforms in 2016.
