Letters: Much more to be done

With reference to the report, "India jumps 12 spots on World Bank's ease of doing biz list" (October 28), although India's improvement under a few parameters brings some comfort, the 'jump' is no reason for jubilation as the country has not advanced much from its rank of 142 in the World Bank's assessment of 189 countries in 2013.

The National Institution for Transforming India Aayog should strengthen in-house expertise to guide government departments and agencies in ensuring better coordination among those tasked with providing assistance, infrastructure and linkage support for those setting up businesses in India.

A single-window approach may not be practical for bringing together services and facilities necessary for setting up units in different sectors. But it should be possible to put into place an information system that reduces the role of middlemen, who extract a price for fast-track clearances.

Under parameters such as number of procedures or number of documents, it should be possible to merge some of them and eliminate the ones that have become redundant with time. The Committee for Reforming the Regulatory Environment (Damodaran Committee, 2012) had approached the issue with common sense and made several recommendations. It is possible that the follow-up action has started yielding results.

M G Warrier Mumbai

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