Uttar Pradesh looking to break in Top 10 Doing Biz ranks again

Uttar Pradesh will be looking to break into Top 10 of the 2017 Ease of Doing Business rankings. This comes in the backdrop of India entering in the Top 100 in the World Bank ‘Doing Business 2018’ ranking released on October 31.

Under the previous Akhilesh Yadav regime, UP had last year slipped in the Ease of Doing Business table from 10th in 2015 to the 14th spot, despite improving its score by almost 80 per cent from about 47 per cent to 85 per cent. 

The state lost out primarily due to stiff competition among the peer states and the top states improving their score by even greater margins than UP.

The state government is not only striving to upgrade its tally domestically, but also leverage India’s improved rankings to its benefit for attracting investment and boosting industrialisation.

Infrastructure and Industrial Development Commissioner (IIDC) Anup Chandra Pandey has been holding a series of meetings in the same regard.

Talking to Business Standard, UP industries minister Satish Mahana said the state was facing some irritants in a couple of parameters, which would be soon taken care of. “There is committee to look into these affairs and I personally monitor its functioning,” he said adding the state was confident of improving its rank this year.

The Ease of Doing Business rankings form part of the Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the union ministry of commerce and industry to increase transparency and efficiency of the regulatory functions and services for business in India.

BRAP, comprising 340 parameters, was first circulated to all states/union territories in October 2015. Currently, there are 372 parameters regarding reforms on 58 regulatory processes, policies and practices spanning 10 reform areas viz. access to information and transparency enablers; single window; environmental registration enablers; obtaining electricity connection; availability of land; construction permit enablers; inspection reform enablers; labour regulation enablers; online tax and return filing and commercial dispute resolution enablers spanning the lifecycle of a typical business.

The respective states/UTs have to submit evidence of implemented reforms with the central website. These are reviewed by the World Bank and validated by DIPP team to study whether they meet the objectives of BRAP. Later, the rankings are ascertained.

Last year, the national average had stood at almost 49 per cent, significantly higher than the 2015 national average of 32 per cent.

In 2016, UP had notched up 284 points out of 340, while the state was found lacking on52 counts. For the remaining four points, the information from the state could not be made available for analysis.

Andhra Pradesh and Telengana had jointly topped the 2016 list, relegating 2015’s topper Gujarat to the third slot. The report had said the results demonstrated that states had increasingly risen to addressing the challenge of making it easier to do business.

The grey areas of UP in ranking parameters related to issues of labour, change of land use, digitisation of land records, mutation, setting up of specialised courts to resolve commercial disputes. This year, the state has already decided to set up commercial courts.