UP working on plan to improve 'Ease of Doing Business' ranking: Govt

In 2018, UP was placed 12th behind top ranked Andhra Pradesh, Telangana

Uttar Pradesh (UP) is working on a roadmap to improve its ‘Ease of Doing Business’ ranking from the current 12th spot, the state government informed the Assembly on Thursday.

In a written reply in Vidhan Sabha, UP industrial development and MSME minister Satish Mahana said that the roadmap to improve the state’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ ranking was crafted under the template of Centre’s ‘Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) 2019’.

Under the plan, 23 state departments had implemented the process of simplifying work flows and processes to improve ‘Ease of Doing Business’ matrices.

Last year, UP was ranked 12th with a score of 92.89%, behind top ranked Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Haryana. However, the state was ranked above Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Kerala.

‘Ease of Doing Business’ ranking of Indian states is the annual index of different states and union territories based on their scores under the annual BRAP. The rankings are done by World Bank along with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

Yesterday, chief minister Adityanath had also highlighted the improving business environment in UP after his government came to power in March 2017, claiming that top companies including Samsung and TCS, which had decided to exit the state owing to adverse political climate, not only stayed back, but expanded their investment basket as well.

Meanwhile, the government is also gearing up to host the mega ‘foundation laying’ ceremony in Lucknow on Sunday to mark the launch of projects totalling over Rs 60,000 crore in the presence of noted industrialists Kumar Mangalam Birla, Gautam Adani, Shiv Nadar among others. Union home minister Amit Shah will be the chief guest on the occasion.

According to the government, projects lined up for foundation laying belong to Vivo, Haier, Samsung, Lava, Medanta, Pepsico, Adani Gas, ITC, JK Cement, Aditya Birla Group, Bharat Gas/Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Unilever etc.

These projects are part of the Rs 4.68 trillion worth of 1,047 memorandums of understandings (MoUs) signed by the UP government with public and private sector companies at ‘UP Investors Summit’ in Lucknow on 21-22 February, 2018. The summit was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the presence of top industrialists.

On July 29, 2018, Modi had presided over the first ceremony, where foundation of projects worth Rs 60,000 crore was laid. He had exhorted UP and Maharashtra to compete for emerging as India’s first trillion-dollar state economy. So far, projects worth Rs 30,000 crore, whose foundation was laid at the first ceremony, have already fructified, while the remaining projects are fast nearing completion.

In fact, the state government is also planning to host a ‘Global Investors Summit’ in February 2020 to position UP as an international investment destination.