Since 2014, India has moved up 79 positions in the World Bank's Doing Business rankings, improving from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019 with the country improving on seven out of the 10 parameters, points out the Economic Survey 2019-20 tabled in Parliament on Friday, and added that "a lot more needs to be done".
"The number of procedures required to set up a business in India, for example, has reduced from 13 to 10 over the past 10 years. Today, it takes an average of 18 days to set up a business in India, down from 30 days in 2009. Although India has significantly reduced the time and cost of starting a business, a lot more needs to be done," says the Economic Survey.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey 2019-20 in Parliament on Friday.
"The services sector too faces many regulatory hurdles even for routine businesses. The bars and restaurants sector is an important source of employment and growth everywhere in the world. It is also a business that, by its nature, faces a high frequency of starting new businesses and shutting old ones. A survey showed that the number of licenses required to open a restaurant in India is significantly more than elsewhere," it read.
While the government has already reduced procedural and documentation requirements considerably, increasing digitalization and seamlessly integrating multiple agencies onto a single digital platform can further reduce these procedural inefficiencies significantly and improve user experience substantially.