Ease of doing biz: DIPP calls meeting of states on Nov 16

The commerce and industry ministry has convened a meeting of state representatives on November 16 to discuss new parameters for their ranking next year in terms of providing business-friendly environment.
Last year, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) ranked the states based on a set of 340 development parameters.
The parameters include time taken in giving power connections to manufacturing units, number of hours of power supply, land banks availability for industrial use, digitised land records at local municipality offices and provision for e-filing for commercial disputes at district courts, among others.
"The meeting will be chaired by the DIPP secretary and the aim of the meeting is to discuss what new parameters can be added or deleted for ranking states in terms of ease of doing business next year," an official said.

This year, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have jointly topped the ease of doing business ranking while Gujarat has slipped to the third position in the list prepared by the World Bank and DIPP.
The exercise of ranking states is aimed at promoting competition among them with a view to improving business climate of the country to attract domestic as well as foreign investments.

Further, another source said the department is expected to apprise the Prime Minister's office of the methodology of the World Bank in ranking countries.
In the World Bank's latest 'Doing Business' report, India's place remained unchanged from last year's original ranking of 130 among the 190 economies that were assessed on various parameters. But the last year's ranking has been revised to 131 from which the country has improved its place by one spot.

India has expressed disappointment over its low ranking and has asked the World Bank to modify its methodology. Currently, the Bank takes data only from Delhi and Mumbai for India's ranking.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked top officials in states and at the Centre to study the World Bank report and asked them to analyse areas requiring reforms and improvements.