Bengaluru Slips To 17th Position In Ease of Doing Business, Delhi Improves Rank

The State Business Reform Action Plan 2019 Ranking released by the government on Saturday (September 5)  saw Andhra Pradesh retaining its top slot, while Delhi’s position improved to 12th from 23rd in the last edition. However, Karnataka’s ranking tumbled from 8th to 17th position.

This is seen as the setback for Karnataka that is making all-out efforts to woo domestic and foreign investors by implementing several reforms.

According to a report by New Indian Express, Industries Minister Jagadish Shettar said they will look into the report and take necessary measures to ensure that Karnataka finds itself among the top five states in the next year’s survey. 

The ease of doing business ranking is based on parameters such as construction permit, labour regulation, environmental registration, access to information, land availability and single window system.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) conducts the exercise for all states/UTs under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP).

So far, rankings have been released for 2015, 2016, 2017-18 and 2019. The exercise is aimed at promoting competition among states with a view to improving the business climate to attract domestic as well as foreign investments.

Registering a jump of 10 places in the rankings, Uttar Pradesh occupied the second position in 2019 as against 12th in 2018. Telangana slipped to the third position from second in 2018. It was followed by Madhya Pradesh (4th), Jharkhand (5th), Chhattisgarh (6th), Himachal Pradesh (7th), Rajasthan (8th), West Bengal (9th) and Gujarat (10th).

Among the laggard states and UTs in the ranking, Bihar was at 26th, Kerala 28th place, Manipur (31), Meghalaya (32), Nagaland (33), Odisha (34), Sikkim (35) and Tripura (36).

India’s position in the ease of doing business ranking had jumped 14 notches last year to 63 among 190 countries. In the last five years, the country has improved its ranking by 67 slots.

The government has drawn up a detailed action plan to make India break into the top 50.

For ease of property registrations, the government is planning to digitise the process in Bengaluru and Kolkata, which will also help in reducing the time requirement. The government will create digital land records to mark all privately held land plots and define timeline changes in a cadastral map.

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