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From Nations, to States to Districts: Ease of Doing Business Rankings to Focus on the Grassroot Level - Shri Guruprasad Mohapatra, Secretary, DPIIT
Dec 19, 2019

“We need to ensure that the benefits of ease of doing business are spread all over and go down to the last mile and each state of India does well. In order to fructify this, DPIIT is already working on district-wise ease of doing business rankings, under which around 140 activities have been listed which every district will have to follow and the same has been circulated to the state governments”, said Dr Guruprasad Mohapatra, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India while addressing the Inaugural Session of National Conference on ‘Reviving Investment through Improved Ease of Doing Business’, organised by CII in New Delhi.

A district-wise ease of doing business plan is slowly evolving in which the four local bodies will partake in improving the business climate and ease of living, along with the centre and the state government, he added.

Taking cognisance of the improvements seen in the overall GST framework, Dr Mohapatra, highlighted that “At the moment, tax rates have been reduced by the GST Council and compliance system has improved. However, it is still a process in the making”. He emphasised that it is important to engage respective state governments with the GST Council for improving the framework further.

Commenting on the various pillars of ease of doing business, Dr Mohapatra stressed that the Single Window System cannot be effective unless everyone decides to be a key stakeholder and it is reviewed at the top level as well. He further added that the government is aware of the inadequacies in the system and it is trying to mend them.

On land, Dr Mohapatra, underlined that “Distrust about possible mis-use of land should not bring forth a system where genuine use of land is impacted”. He highlighted the case of Gujarat where if the necessary land approvals are not granted in the stipulated time period, then they will be deemed to be approved.

Dr Mohapatra was optimistic of breaking into the top 50 of the World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings soon. However, he sounded caution that once India does that, it will be in the league of advanced industrialised countries, where any incremental progress will require even stronger reform measures from the government. From next year onwards, the World Bank EODB rankings will include two more cities of Bengaluru and Kolkata apart from the existing cities of Delhi and Mumbai, he informed.

Sharing the state’s perspective on improving the business environment, Dr Rajendra Kumar, Principal Secretary, MSME, Government of Tamil Nadu, highlighted that Tamil Nadu has made laudable strides in improving its business climate by having all approvals related to land, labour, paying taxes etc., available online through a single composite form. He further underscored that each government department is obliged to give the approvals online within a specified time frame.

Welcoming Secretary, DPIIT, Mr Shreekant Somany, Chairman, CII National MSME Council highlighted that while the government’s measures to improve the business sentiments have borne fruit, the need of the hour is to focus more on short-term measures, which have potential to deliver quick results for boosting investment. He also underlined a few measures, such as enhancing capacity & efficiency of the Alternative Dispute Mechanism, fast-track disbursal of delayed payments, aligning all the states into the Shram Suvidha Portal among others, to deliver on this front.

19 December 2019

New Delhi

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