Business Bureau
India’s 28 states are in a race to climb up the first ever “ease of doing business charts” being compiled by the Centre. So, states are doing their best to cut down on red tape and simplify compliance procedures to appear more business-friendly than others to attract investments.
Maharashtra reduced the number of procedures in getting electricity connection, Punjab exempted 131 type of industries from pollution consent requirement. The rankings on Investor friendliness will be out by the end of May. While Puducherry in south has introduced single completion-cum-occupancy certificate whereas Chhattisgarh has introduced online consent monitoring and management system for grant of environment clearances.
Delhi and Maharashtra allowed online registration of shops and establishments. Puducherry also scrapped pollution control committee's inspection for green category industries.
"We can already sense competition among states with most announcing a slew of measures to simplify procedures, be it Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Punjab or Gujarat," said a Central government official and added that real action lies in the states.
India was ranked 142 in the World Bank's ease of doing business ranking in 2015 out of 189 countries. The Narendra Modi government wants India to be in the top 50 club in the next few years.
The Department of industrial policy and promotion sent a list of 300 questions to all states and Union Territories for the ranking purpose, based on 98 ease of doing business parameters. The move is to make the 'Make in India' campaign more vibrant which will result in a manufacturing revival in the economy. The questions are objective in nature, leaving little scope for ambiguous responses.
The parameters are developing a land bank, registration of property, starting a business, construction permits, environment compliances, etc., with timelines spread to December 31.
The manufacturing sector is estimated grew 6.8 percent in 2014-15. DIPP recommended a single-window online mechanism by May 31, to allow for registration, application, tracking and monitoring of application, which will encourage young professionals to turn entrepreneurs in all states. The states were also asked to develop a land bank by June to ensure ready land availability for the industry.
The Central government took a series of measures towards ease of doing business, cutting down of export and import documents to three, integrating 14 government services on an online single window portal called eBiz and creation of an investor facilitation cell. Application for environment and forest clearances has been made online.
