World Bank's ease of doing business ranking: Will focus on four areas to ensure further improvement says DIPP secretary

New Delhi: The government will focus on four major areas, including registering properties, insolvency resolution and paying taxes, next year to ensure further improvement in India’s ease of doing a business ranking, a top official said on Wednesday. Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said reform measures taken by the government has helped improve the country’s rank significantly but there is a need to work more on these areas. According to the World Bank’s doing business report 2019 based on 10 parameters, India climbed 23 points to 77th place. However, India’s position declined on four parameters – protecting minority rights (7), paying taxes (121), registering property (166), and resolving insolvency (108) – compared to the last year. [caption id=“attachment_4336087” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] “We need to work on four areas – registering property, enforcing contracts, insolvency resolution and paying taxes. Commercial courts were set up in Delhi and Mumbai. Now we have to fast-track disposal of commercial cases in these courts, so that the time taken for the disposal comes down,” Abhishek told PTI. Talking about the areas where more work is required, he said a lot of progress is required in registering properties. Although digitisation of records has taken place but still there are many gaps to work on, he said, adding insolvency resolution and starting a business are the other major areas where more work would be done. “These are major indicators in which we will do major improvement,” the secretary said. On the other hand, he said the ranking has clearly reflected the work carried out in parameters including trading across borders, starting a business, dealing with construction permits. “All major reforms recognised that is why we see this dramatic improvement,” he said adding in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, “this year, we have got some improvement in access to credit, but the recovery rate has to improve for us to get more credit under insolvency resolution”. Instead of liquidation, if more and more companies would go for reorganisation, then there will be a significant improvement in the parameter of insolvency resolution. The World Bank ranks countries based on 10 parameters, including starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. Commenting on the report, Federation of Indian Export Organisation President Ganesh Gupta said that various initiatives taken by the government are converging to provide an enabling and supportive eco-system for entrepreneurs and exporters. “The improvement in trading across the border by 66 rank in one go shows how trade facilitation has helped in cutting down time and cost. The government should continue with the reform process with further zeal and push,” he said. Vishwas Udgirkar, Partner, Deloitte India said the improvement in ranking has been on the back of overall reforms such as the use of digital and technology. “The thrust on infrastructure initiatives for trade and business, especially those centred around logistics and supply chain, have shown results,” he said. According to Richa Gupta, Senior Director and Senior Economist, Deloitte India, this is a big positive for the economy, and indicates the pace of reform measures underway. “The gains made can be expected to boost the recovery in the growth further,” Gupta said.