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Andhra Pradesh has topped the government’s ease of doing business index for states with a score of 98.42 per cent, ahead of the industrialised states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Andhra Pradesh was followed by followed by Telangana and Haryana which grabbed the second and third spots with scores of 98.33 per cent and 98.07 per cent.
The commerce and industry ministry released the ranking on Tuesday. The rankings, jointly prepared by the World Bank and DIPP, serve as a check-list of sorts for evaluating states on a 340-point Business Reform Action Plan, between the period of July, 2016 and July, 2018. The ranking aims at triggering competition among states to attract investments and improve the business climate.
Jharkhand and Gujarat came fourth and fifth respectively. The other states in the top achievers category are Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan.
The big industrialised states of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are ranked 13th and 15th respectively while Delhi is at the 23rd position. The bottom three ranks have been taken up by Arunachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep and Meghalaya.
The Ease of Business rankings have become an annual affair with in which all states and Union Territories are included under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP).
The assessment under the BRAP 2017 is based on a combined score consisting of reform evidence score that is based on evidence uploaded by states/UTs and feedback score that is based on response garnered from the actual users of the services provided to the businesses.
DIPP said 17 states have achieved a reform evidence score of more than 90 per cent and 15 have achieved a combined score of 90 per cent and more.
"The states which have achieved 80 percent or more reforms evidence score represent 84 per cent of the countrys area, 90 percent of the country's population and 79 per cent of Indias GDP," it said.
Number of reform actions implemented under BRAP 2017 increased to 7,758 from 2,532 in 2015.
In the latest Doing Business report of the World Bank, India's rank improved by a number of notches to 100 among 190 nations. The government wants to be among the top 50 countries in the overall ease of doing business rankings which is by the World Bank.
