Odisha loses 4 places, at 11th in ease of doing business ranking

New Delhi: Exactly a month ahead of the much touted ‘Make In Odisha’ conclave of the State government scheduled to begin here from November 30, Odisha has slipped to 11th position in the ‘Ease of Doing Business Reforms Ranking 2015-16’ conducted by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the World Bank.

While the State has secured 92.73%, the joint top being Andhra Pradesh and Telengana states with 98.78%, the State’s score was 52.12 points (7th spot) last year.

In the list of 32 States and Union territories, Gujarat has slipped to the third position while Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana occupied the fourth, fifth and sixth slots in the index based on the degree of implementation of the government’s 340-point Business Reform Action Plan.

The 2016 Index shows those in the list of top 10 States providing a better climate for businesses include Jharkhand (7th), Rajasthan (8th), Uttarakhand (9th) and Maharashtra (10th). Odisha is followed by Punjab, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

The assessment studies the extent to which states have implemented DIPP’s 340-point Business Reform Action Plan, in the period between July 2015 and June 2016.

The Plan includes recommendations for reforms on 58 regulatory processes, policies and practices spread across 10 reform areas spanning the lifecycle of a typical business.

Data was collected from states on a real-time basis as reflected on the Business Reform Action Plan portal. Thirty-two states and Union territories submitted evidence of having implemented 7,124 reforms. These submissions were reviewed by the World Bank team and validated by DIPP’s team to study whether they met the objectives of the Plan. A total of 6,069 reforms were approved as having been implemented.

“The results of the assessment demonstrate that states have increasingly risen to addressing the challenge of making it easier to do business. The national implementation average stands at 48.93%, significantly higher than last year’s national average of 32%,” a DIPP statement said.

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 was revised to 131 from which the country has improved its place by one spot.