Based on Business Reforms Action Plan 2019 released on Saturday, Andhra Pradesh for the third straight year led the pack in implementing reforms under the Centre’s initiative of ease of doing business. The rankings are purely based on stakeholders’ comments on all the reform measures, instead of a mix of their claims and user feedback.
The five of the seven lowest income level states of India have grabbed their rankings in the top ten list including Uttar Pradesh at the second position, Madhya Pradesh at fourth, Jharkhand at fifth, Chattisgarh on sixth position and Rajasthan on eight. Uttar Pradesh has moved up by 10 notches from the previous year ranking to grab the second position in the latest index and remained under the best performer among major states.
States like Haryana and Gujarat, who were the major performers and had occupied third and fifth positions in the Business Reforms Action Plan 2017, has gone down in their rankings sliding to 16th and 10th position in the latest index. Delhi has improved its ranking by 11 notches and stood at 12th position and the improvement is considered to be good news for India’s ranking, as poor performance resulted to partly weigh down the country’s ranking in the index.
The ranking of states in the Business Reforms Action Plan Index, is done by the World Bank and the Department for the Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), assuming as a role of facilitator between the Bank and states. This year, the 180 reform issues covered areas including construction permit, enforcement of contracts, land availability, commercial dispute resolution, labour regulations, environmental registration, online tax-returns filing, inspection reforms, access of information and transparency and single-window facilities. Due to the partly general polls in 2018, the rankings for the Business Reforms Action Plan 2018, wasn’t released last year.