The government is aligning state business readiness rankings with the upcoming ease of doing business index of the World Bank, people aware of the development told Moneycontrol.
In its next version of rankings, the 2024 Business Reform Action Plan rankings prepared by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade will include some of the indicators tracked by the World Bank’s B-READY index.
“We are aligning the BRAP with some of the indicators in the B-READY index. The 2024 version of BRAP rankings will reflect these changes,” said a person familiar with the developments.
The enterprise survey for the B-READY index for India will start in October. The World Bank will use assistance from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to decide on a sample of industries for its enterprise study.
Although the B-READY rankings will commence in 2024, India will only participate in the exercise in 2026. The first set of rankings will feature 54 countries, with the 2025 report covering 120 economies and the 2026 version having rankings on 180 economies.
The B-READY index is a successor to the Ease of Doing Business rankings, which were discontinued in 2021 due to irregularities. The new framework envisages taking into consideration more diverse factors while arriving at the rating. Global financial institutions and multi-national companies will use the B-Ready framework as a benchmark to understand the regulatory and policy environment of a country.
Moneycontrol earlier reported that the government had asked states to address the gaps in the B-READY evaluation to improve their ranking in the global index.
India’s ranking in the Ease of Doing Business Index had improved from 79 ranks to 63 in the 2020 edition, from 142 in 2014.
A team of government officials has already been tasked to understand the technical aspects of B-READY and come out with plans on how India could improve its score, the people cited above added.
The new Business Ready index tracks ten parameters covering a firm’s lifecycle from starting, operating, closing, and reorganising. Similar to the earlier version, these include aspects like business entry, utility services, and labour. However, they also assess the reality on the ground and not just changes in law.
The government had recently announced the BRAP 2022 rankings, which were topped by Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
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