States' ease of biz ranking: DIPP may include retail, telecom, petroleum as new categories next year

New Delhi: The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will consider inclusion of more categories like retail, telecom, and petroleum in the ease of doing business ranking of states next year, a top official said today. Once they are included in the ranking, the reforms carried out by states and Union Territories would be taken on board by the DIPP and the World bank while computing the rankings.

“We are planning now to add some more categories like last time we added tourism and health. I would like to include the retail sector because there is a lot to work in this also. So these are a few ideas. We have to take a call on this,” DIPP Secretary Ramesh Abhishek told reporters.

He said that in the Telecom Commission meeting on Wednesday, some members suggested including the sector for states so that steps could be taken by them to facilitate works related to this segment. Citing an example, he said the charges for laying optical fibre cable in Mumbai is Rs 2 crore for one kilometer, while it is Rs 1.5 crore in Delhi. Reduction of these charges by local authorities would help in increasing optical fibre density in the country. Similarly, demand has also come from the petroleum ministry to include the sector in the rankings. Abhishek said in the next year’s rankings, “we will take 100 percent feedback, but we will have to figure out how to take that. We will do some changes in 372 reforms”. [caption id=“attachment_4270733” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. ThinkStock.[/caption] Andhra Pradesh has topped the ease of doing business ranking of states and Union Territories by the World Bank and DIPP. This year, the government ranked the states and UTs based on 372 action points. The parameters include areas such as construction permit, labour regulation, environmental registration, access to information, land availability, and single window system. Improvement in ease of doing business will help attract more investment and better the business climate for investors. India has jumped 30 places to rank 100th in the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ ranking. The secretary said there is no direct relation between states’ ranking and its impact on the global rankings. Further, when asked about the difficult reforms, he said that it is challenging to implement registration of properties and enforcement of contracts. “But the government is taking steps to improve in these parameters,” he said, adding it would take some time to resolve these issues.