States have been categorised into top achievers, achievers, aspires, and emerging business ecosystems, as against the earlier practice of announcing ranks.
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday released the assessment report of the states and union territories under ‘Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP), 2020’.
The report categorises states into top achievers, achievers, aspires, and emerging business ecosystems, as against the earlier practice of announcing ranks.
In view of this, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab and Tamil Nadu are the states categorised as ‘top achievers’ in the rankings as per the plan.
Further, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh have been categorised as ‘achievers’.
The ‘aspires’ category too includes seven states – Assam, Kerala, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
In the category of ‘emerging business ecosystems’, there are 11 states and UTs, including Delhi, Puducherry and Tripura.
Andaman and Nicobar, Bihar, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Tripura are the other states and UTs in this section.
Speaking after releasing the report, Sitharaman said that the nature of reforms had undergone change since 1991 and the reforms, which are now taking place, are responsive.
“Unlike the reforms of 1991, which were given to us for implementation, there is no compulsion now. The objective is to see what will bring out improvement in systems and ensure better lives for us. An element of nudge has been brought into every layer of the government,” she said.
Nudging can not come only from the government and the industry has a big role to play there, the finance minister said.
She also emphasised the need for capacity building at all levels so that efficiency can be further improved.
BRAP 2020
According to secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Anurag Jain, the new categorisation method was used as the difference between various states/UTs was so little that it did not make sense to rank them.
According to the ministry of commerce and industry, the BRAP report includes 301 reform points that cover 15 business regulatory areas such as access to Information, single window system, labour, environment, sectoral reforms and other reforms spanning across the lifecycle of a typical business.
Sectoral reforms have been introduced for the first time in BRAP 2020 wherein 72 reforms were identified across 9 sectors, namely, trade licence, healthcare, legal metrology, cinema halls, hospitality, fire NOC, telecom, movie shooting and tourism, the Ministry said.
DPIIT has been releasing such reports since 2014 for steering business reforms to create an investor-friendly ecosystem across the country.
So far four editions of the assessment of have been released, and the latest edition was for the 2020 assessment.
The DPIIT has undertaken a feedback-based exercise wherein feedback was taken from businesses on the quality of implementation of the reforms carried out by the States and the UTs.
The DPIIT is the institutional anchor for the Ease of Doing Business program. It has brought in a cohesive approach by breaking the silos and working in collaboration with States and Union UTs to improve their business regulatory environment.
