The union government presented a plan ahead on Tuesday with Prime Minister Modi and ministers to make India the top 50 Ease of Doing Business countries as per the guidelines formulated by World Bank.
India currently ranks 63rd in the list of Ease of Doing Business nations. The Modi-led government is now making an extra effort to get India into the top 50 countries. The contributing areas like enforcement of contracts, registering property, starting a business and paying taxes which could move up the rankings of India have got special attention from the union government. These important parameters also figured in the detailed presentation made by the promotion of industry and internal trade and all departments will work in these areas this year.
The two cities – Kolkata and Bangalore – figure prominently in the agenda as these new cities will be reviewed by the World Bank after it expanded the scope of the annual exercise to cover four Indian cities. The discussions have been held with top officials of the state government in this regard.
The sources in the government say that setting up of special courts to improve the environment on enforcement of contracts is a welcome step but the behavioural changes are the need of the hour. The government has made efforts on tax-paying grounds to merge a different kind of taxes in goods and services tax (GST) but it has only limited impacts. In the same way, the recent reduction in corporation tax may have some positive impact on the measures used to gauge the parameters for improvement.