FICCI President urges reforms in regulation sector

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) President Pankaj Patel opined that the Centre should consider reforms in the area of regulators, as they would have a significant impact on cost as well as ease of doing business.

Addressing the 'India's Business Reforms' session here on Saturday organised by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Patel lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his efforts to realise the 'New India' vision, following India's 30-place jump in the Ease of Doing Business index released recently by the World Bank.

However, Patel also highlighted that while the achievement "reflects the government's determination to take bold and far reaching reforms required to transform India," certain sectors of the economy still need improvement.

"There are number of areas where our rank may not have improved significantly, but at least the direction is there to make that process more efficient and simpler in terms of compliance. Starting a business, construction permits, enforcing contracts, registering property and other such areas needs improvement for the efficient functioning of the business organisations," he said.

The World Bank's recent 'Ease of Doing Business index' showed that India has risen as much as 30 positions to rank 100th amongst 190 countries. As per the 2018 version of the Ease of Doing Business index, India has been amongst the world's top ten improvers worldwide and a leading regional reformer.

"With the eight reforms enforced in the system, India made paying taxes easier by requiring that payments be made electronically to the Employees Provident Fund and introducing a set of administrative measures easing compliance with corporate income tax," said the World Bank in a statement.

The report also mentioned the substantive changes implemented by the Indian Government in 2016-17 that included merging of applications for the Permanent Account Number (PAN) and Tax Account Number (TAN) for starting a new business.

For the unversed, the Ease of Doing Business report is based on how easy it is for companies to do business as well takes in account certain regulations based on ten parameters including starting a business, getting electricity, dealing with construction permits and paying taxes among others.