[ Nellie N Manpoong ]
ITANAGAR, Jul 10: Arunachal Pradesh is at the bottom three of the ‘ease of doing business’ ranking among all the states and union territories of India in a list prepared by the World Bank and the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) on Tuesday.
With a score of zero in the reform evidence score and in the feedback score, Arunachal sits with Lakshadweep and Meghalaya in the bottom three (34 to 36 in alphabetical order).
Andhra Pradesh with a score of 98.42 percent topped the list, Telanga was placed second with 98.33 percent, and Haryana was third with 98.07 percent.
The government of India floated the move to rank states in 2017 with the aim of triggering competition among states to attract investments and improve business climate. The parameters of the ranking include areas such as construction permit, labour regulation, environmental registration, access to information, land availability, and single-window system.
The DIPP, in collaboration with the World Bank conducts an annual reform exercise for all states and union territories under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP).
The assessment under BRAP 2017 is based on a combined score consisting of reform evidence uploaded by states and union territories, and the feedback score is based on response garnered from the actual users of the services provided to the businesses.
Meanwhile, an official of the industries department of Arunachal informed this daily that the 2017 cabinet decision to amalgamate the finance and planning departments as the department of finance & investments has created confusion in improving the ‘ease of doing business’ index in the state.
Earlier, the industries department dealt with improving the index under the ‘Make in India’ programme. However, after amalgamation and creation of the department of finance & investments in 2017, the tasks of business allocation, subject investment, promotion, etc, were transferred from the industries department and allocated to the department of finance & investments.
“Because of the confusion in transfer of responsibilities, confusion was created under this subject, and there is much left to do to improve the state’s ranking,” added the official.
Some other officials cited the ILP system (as it causes hindrance in obtaining trade licence directly), lack of recognized industries, difficulty in acquiring land, erratic power supply, lack of good markets, etc. as other probable reasons for the low ranking.
However, Nagaland and Mizoram, which also have ILP system, are ahead of Arunachal. Nagaland is ranked 25th in the ranking, while Mizoram is at 30.
Recently, the Potin Pangin Highway Pvt Ltd (PPHL), the construction agency engaged to construct the Potin-Pangin stretch of the TAH, had also withdrawn from the state, citing lack of support from state government and law order issue. (With PTI inputs)
