India has moved up 23 places in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (EDOB) 2019, coming in at 77 out of 190 countries. To ensure the country moves into the top 50, last November Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation, released a report prepared by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion on the industrial park rating system, which has evaluated states and 3,354 industrial clusters across India to assess quality of infrastructure in industrial parks. The rating system will not just provide a fillip in India’s efforts to enhance its rating but accelerate manufacturing’s contribution to GDP and drive economic growth and employment. “This initiative can promote transparency, healthy competition and improved focus on environmental and infrastructure standards,” says Sanjay Srivastava, Business Head, Mahindra World City, Jaipur, and Director, ORIGINS, Ahmedabad. “It can help clients quickly evaluate offerings and shorten decision-making time for investments.” And Jasmine Singh, Senior Executive Director - Advisory & Transaction Services, CBRE, says, “It will increase competitiveness and boost the manufacturing sector. It will improve infrastructure in these parks and help assess whether they are in line with global standards.” The rating system will undoubtedly help create competition for world-class infrastructure with optimised cost structures and offer more choices to the end-user. And Dr Niranjan Hiranandani, Founder & Managing Director, Hiranandani Group, adds, “It will ensure industrial real-estate development happens with proper regulations and hygiene and is sophisticated, sustainable and according to user requirements.” N Srinivas, Managing Director-Industrial Services, JLL India, views this as a growth-oriented initiative to create a competitive environment among the industrial development corporations. However, he points out, “This rating system unfortunately covers only public industrial parks or parks developed by industrial development corporations across states. Inclusion of privately developed industrial parks may expand its horizon and indicate a clear overview on the quality of industrial and logistics parks across the country.” That said, the rating system with a clear and transparent methodology of scoring will definitely bring in the interest and confidence of investors, manufacturers and logistics players. And, as Anshul Singhal, CEO, Embassy Industrial Parks, affirms, “It will boost competitiveness among states to improve industrial infrastructure and act as a feedback portal for policymakers and investors.” The Ministry of Commerce and Industry is contemplating the enhancement of the current ranking system and considering bringing in deeper qualitative assessment feedback and technological intervention—developing it as a tool that effectively helps demand-driven and need-based interventions by both policymakers and investors. SHRIYAL SETHUMADHAVAN