Seven regions -- Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana -- have scored more than 90 percent in the Centre's ranking of states on ease of doing business, thus leading the table.
The Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) 2020 report showed these states led in completing a long list of reforms identified by the Centre for improving investor confidence and access to government services for citizens.
The central government started ranking states in 2015 based on the implementation of BRAP, which indicates progress in digitisation, transparency, and investor confidence in the country.
Unlike previous years, the government has abandoned the system of a simple ranking in favour of a band of states in the same range of reform completion. In the previous edition of the annual exercise, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana had been ranked in the top 3 positions.
The second list of states with 80-90 percent score are Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The third list of states with 50-80 percent score are Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan and West Bengal. The national capital territory of Delhi, along with Bihar, and all the union territories scored less than 50 percent.
The index is an effort to recognize the states that performed the best in removing red tape and incrementally bettering their business ecosystem. "The rankings have evolved significantly. From an original assessment of what action each state had taken, to a mix of actions taken, and feedback received by stakeholders, to now a 100% fully feedback-based assessment system," Commece and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said.
The last edition of the BRAP in 2019 showed Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana lead the rankings.
Reforms list
BRAP 2020 contains a list of 301 reform action points spread over scores of parameters and at least 18 state government departments.
"Every year, a list of increasingly sophisticated reforms are planned and most states have shown great consistency in completing them. The government feels that a relook at the exercise may provide a more significant improvement in creating ease of doing business," a DPIIT official said.
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