It is, perhaps, early to celebrate the fact that India has moved up 12 places in the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business report. The ranking was boosted by just three of the 10 parameters, namely ease of starting a business, ease of getting electricity, and dealing with construction permits. The latter is up just one rank, which really is nothing, and India still remains near the bottom of the countries surveyed. It takes 231 days and 28 procedures to get a construction permit in Delhi and 147 days and 40 procedures in Mumbai, while resolving contract disputes takes 44 months and almost 40 per cent of the contract goes in lawyers’ fees. But there is optimism that India will get into the top 100 next year, and it is possible with the slew of measures the government has taken since June.
The survey was for the year ending May 31, 2015. Since then there has been a lot of continuing reforms in taxation, setting up consumer courts, fixing anomalies in the Companies Act, etc. It is hoped the focus on the bankruptcy law will grow sharper and the goods and service tax will be brought in next year. A major shortcoming of the World Bank survey is that it has considered only Mumbai and Delhi, and Maharashtra is one of the laggards despite its claims to the contrary. Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, etc., which have undertaken a lot of reforms towards making it easier to do business, are not in its purview. The government faces a huge challenge in cutting the red tape institutionalised by the bureaucracy.
