Mumbai: Andhra Pradesh has topped the ease of doing business index, with a score of 98.42 per cent, among all states and Union Territories.
Andhra’s neighbour Telangana (98.33 percent) has been ranked number two, followed by Haryana (98.07 per cent) at number three and Jharkhand (97.99 per cent) and Gujarat (97.96 per cent) at number four and five respectively, in the rankings released by the government on Tuesday.
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan are the other states in the top 10 of the list.
The national capital Delhi (31.60 per cent) has been ranked 23, dropping from 19 in 2016, in the third edition of the list.
Meghalaya was ranked last at 36th position.
The rankings were published by the Department for Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), which is under the commerce and industry ministry.
The publication of rankings aims to trigger a competition among states, to attract investments and improve the business climate. The ministry released the latest ranking under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP), 2017.
In the last Budget, the NDA government identified 372 action points for states that they would carry out on a mission mode.
The parameters included areas such as construction permits, labour regulation, environmental registration, access to information, land availability and 'fast-tracked' approvals via the single window system.
The assessment under the BRAP 2017 is based on a combined score consisting of reform evidence score that is based on evidence uploaded by States/UTs and feedback score that is based on response garnered from the actual users of the services provided to the businesses.
