In news–The Union Finance Minister has recently released the assessment report of the states and union territories under ‘Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP), 2020’.
Ranking & categorization of states/UTs-
- The BRAP report categorises states into top achievers, achievers, aspires, and emerging business ecosystems, as against the earlier practice of announcing ranks.
- According to the report,, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab and Tamil Nadu are the states categorised as ‘top achievers’ in the Ease of Doing Business ranking of states and union territories.
- Further, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh have been categorised as ‘achievers’.
- The ‘aspires’ category too includes seven states – Assam, Kerala, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
- In the category of ‘emerging business ecosystems’, there are 11 states and UTs, including Delhi, Puducherry and Tripura.
- Andaman and Nicobar, Bihar, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Tripura are the other states and UTs in this section.
- The broader aim of the exercise is to boost investor confidence, foster a business-friendly climate and augment the ease of doing business across the country by introducing an element of healthy competition through a system of assessing states based on their performance in the implementation of Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP).
BRAP report-
- The BRAP report includes 301 reform points that cover 15 business regulatory areas such as access to Information, single window system, labour, environment, sectoral reforms and other reforms spanning across the lifecycle of a typical business.
- Sectoral reforms have been introduced for the first time in BRAP 2020 wherein 72 reforms were identified across 9 sectors, namely, trade licence, healthcare, legal metrology, cinema halls, hospitality, fire NOC, telecom, movie shooting and tourism.
- The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is the institutional anchor for the Ease of Doing Business program.
- DPIIT has been releasing such reports since 2014 for steering business reforms to create an investor-friendly ecosystem across the country.
- So far four editions of the assessment of have been released, and the latest edition was for the 2020 assessment.
- It has brought in a cohesive approach by breaking the silos and working in collaboration with States and Union UTs to improve their business regulatory environment.
Source: Livemint
