12 Indian States Lead Business Reforms

India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and its  Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in partnership with the World Bank Group, released the results of the Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms 2015-16.

This Assessment studies the extent to which the 36 states and federally administered territories have implemented DIPP’s 340-point Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) for the period July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. The BRAP includes recommendations for reforms on 58 regulatory processes, policies, practices or procedures spread across 10 reform areas spanning the life cycle of a typical business. The BRAP portal, among the first of its kind globally, allowed the states and federally administered territories to submit evidence of implemented reforms.

32 of the 36 states and federally administered territories submitted evidence of implementation of 7,124 reforms. These submissions were reviewed by the World Bank team and validated by DIPP’s team on whether they met the objectives of the BRAP. A total of 6,069 reforms were approved as implemented or not applicable on the portal.

The results of the assessment released by Government of India’s Press Information Bureau demonstrate that States have increasingly risen to addressing the challenge of making it easier to do business. The national implementation average stands at 49%, significantly higher than the previous year’s national average of 32%.

Based on implementation of reforms, the states and federally governed entities have been divided into four categories: