Focus Turns To Kolkata, Bengaluru For ‘Ease of Doing Business’ Boost

The Indian government has already begun its preparation for the World Bank’s next Ease of Doing Business report of 2021 to be released in October this year. The government has sharpened its focus on Kolkata and Bengaluru as key growth hubs, along with Delhi and Mumbai.

In the Ease of Doing Business report of 2020, India managed to improve its position by 14 ranks to reach the 63 position. Meanwhile, its ease of registration of property index was ranked as low as 154 out of the total 190 countries listed. Therefore, the Indian government has decided to start off by making the process of registering properties simpler in the two regions — Bengaluru and Kolkata.

With this initiative, the government wants to make India debut into the top 50 countries in terms of Ease of doing Business. The Ease of Doing Business report judges a nation on 12 criteria, including starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency.

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As per an ET report, officials from the department of promotions of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) and land resources have also held a meeting with officials from West Bengal, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Delhi. In the meeting, the officials reviewed progress in Delhi and Mumbai in terms of property registration and discussed new reforms for the Bengaluru and Kolkata hubs.

For ease of property registrations, the Indian government is looking 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.

The government is also looking to municipal records and utility bills to take the digitisation approach forward. Besides this, DPIIT and the land resources department are in talks to make statistics of land disputes public, ensuring timely disposals of property disputes and also completing the cadastral mapping of all maps.

India is also considering launching an integrated portal for verification of titles and encumbrances for all four cities — Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru — and enacting a Land Titling Bill.

Besides ease of land registrations, the Indian government has also decided to focus on five other parameters based on to boost the Ease of Doing Business rankings. These include enforcing contracts (163rd rank), resolving insolvency (52nd rank), starting a business (136th rank), paying taxes (115th rank) and trading across borders (68th rank). Besides that, the government has also simplified the process of registering startups.