New state rankings as enablers of regulation

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has released the State and Union Territory (UT) rankings under the State Reform Action Plan (SRAP), 2019. As many as 187 reform points were included in the Action Plan covering 12 business regulatory areas: labour regulation-enablers, access to information and transparency enablers, single window system, construction permit enablers, inspection enablers, sector-specific, paying taxes, environment registration enablers, obtaining utility permits, land administration and transfer of property, contract enforcement and land availability and allotment. While some states and UTs have improved their rankings, others slipped down in the SRAP 2019, compared to previous year's data. The top states as per the SRAP assessment are:State/UTSRAP rankAndhra Pradesh1Uttar Pradesh2Telangana3Madhya Pradesh4Jharkhand5Chattisgarh6Himachal Pradesh7Rajasthan8West Bengal9Gujarat10 The assessment of states and UTs under the SRAP 2019 was based on feedback obtained from users and professionals against 180 out of 187 reform points, combined with the World Bank (WB) methodology in its global ease of doing business rankings. The Action Plan has been spread across 15 reform areas and seeks to promote a sector-specific approach to creating and enabling a business environment across various sectors in the country. The various sectors include healthcare, trade licence, fire licence or NOC, cinema halls, legal metrology, telecom, movie shooting, tourism and hospitality.Make in Steel 202124 February Click for event info4th Indian Cement Review Conference 202117-18 March Click for event infoDPIIT further prepared a 301-point State Reforms Action Plan 2020, and shared it with states and UTs. In order to guide states and UTs in implementing complex and critical reforms, a series of capacity-building webinars was organised in November 2020, December 2020 and January 2021, wherein reform area-wise best practices of states were shared with all the states. Further, a set of FAQs have been prepared and shared with them to understand reform requirements, objective and other key points. Independent surveys and analyses have been conducted over recent years, competitively ranking states on various parameters, such as urban governance, which is a direct factor of how structures of civic order and development within a city are initiated, operated, managed, and maintained, and especially how easy it is to do business.Image: More than 180 reform points were included in the Action Plan covering 12 business regulatory areas. Also read: Urban governance index spotlights gaps in grassroots democracy Also read: Top 10 police stations of India for 2020 announced