On September 5, 2020, Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman has virtually announced the 4th edition of State Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) Ranking for 2018-19 which was released by Department of Industrial Promotion and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of commerce and industry. In accordance with that, Andhra Pradesh (AP) topped the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) ranking 2019, followed by Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Telangana at 2nd & 3rd place respectively. Among Union Territories (UTs), Delhi bagged the top spot.
- The state of UP improved to reach the 2nd spot from 12th spot in the 2018 ranking while Telangana slipped from 2nd to 3rd position.
- It should be noted that EODB is a joint initiative by the DPIIT and the World Bank (WB) to improve the overall business environment in the States.
- Parameters: The BRAP 2018-19 included 180 reform points covering 12 business regulatory areas such as Access to Information, Single Window System, Labour regulation, Environment, land availability, construction permit.Â
- Reason: The reason behind this ranking is to create an element of healthy competition in states in order to achieve a larger objective of attracting investments and increasing EODB in each State.
Following table shows the top 5 states and lower ranked states under State Reform Action Plan 2019:
| Rank | State |
|---|---|
| 1 | Andhra Pradesh (AP) |
| 2 | Uttar Pradesh (UP) |
| 3 | Telangana |
| 4 | Madhya Pradesh (MP) |
| 5 | Jharkhand |
| States/UT with least ranking (29th) are: Arunachal Pradesh (AR), Chandigarh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikkim and Tripura. | |
Following table shows the top (1st) performer region-wise:
| Region | State |
|---|---|
| North | Uttar Pradesh (UP) |
| West | Madhya Pradesh (MP) |
| East | Jharkhand |
| South | Andhra Pradesh (AP) |
| UT | Delhi |
| North Eastern | Assam |
About BRAP Ranking:
Initiated in 2015, BRAP ranking represent the EODB in the State with increased transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of the government regulatory functions vis-a-vis the business enterprises.During the assessment full weightage was given to the feedback from over 30,000 respondents at the ground level, who gave their opinion about the effectiveness of the reforms.
Recent Related News:
In accordance with the data of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the United States (US) remained India’s top trading partner for the second consecutive fiscal year in 2019-20 as bilateral trade between the US and India stood at USD 88.75 billion as against USD 87.96 billion in 2018-19.
About Minister of Commerce and Industry:
Union Minister– Piyush Vedprakash Goyal
Minister of State– Hardeep Singh Puri, Som Prakash
