Seven states have been categorised as top achievers in the ranking of States and Union Territories based on the implementation of the Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) 2020, according to a report released today by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana are the top achievers based on implementation of BRAP, while Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh figure under the Achievers category.
Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan and West Bengal have been placed in the Aspirers category, while Andaman & Nicobar, Bihar, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Puducherry and Tripura have been clubbed under the Emerging Business Ecosystems category.
Finance Minister announced the assessment of States and Union Territories under the fifth edition of the BRAP exercise in New Delhi today. Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal, was also present on the occasion.
Sitharaman said that the nature of reforms had undergone change since 1991. “The reforms now taking place are responsive reforms. Unlike the reforms of 1991, which were given to us for implementation, there is no compulsion now. The objective is to see what will bring out improvement in systems and ensure better lives for us. An element of nudge has been brought into every layer of the government. Nudging cannot be by the government only and the industry has a big role to play there.”
Piyush Goyal said that the assessment has evolved from evidence-based to 100% feedback in multilingual format. He said that the purpose of this BRAP exercise is to infuse a culture of learning from each other’s best practices and improve upon the business climate in each State/UT with a unified objective for India to emerge as a most favoured investment destination across the globe.
“When Prime Minister gave the thrust in 2014 to improving the ease of doing business, one of his major thrust areas was that while we are working at the international level for improving our ranking, we must involve all the stakeholders including the States and UTs in our effort to get them on board so that people really feel the difference and change in their ecosystem, which will lead to ease of living,” Goyal said.
BRAP 2020 includes 301 reform points covering 15 business regulatory areas such as access to information, single window system, labour, environment, land administration and transfer of land and property, utility permits and others. Another 118 new reforms were included to further augment the reform process.
Sectoral reforms with 72 action points spread across nine sectors namely trade license, healthcare, legal metrology, cinema halls, hospitality, fire NOC, telecom, movie shooting and tourism were introduced for the first time to expand the scope of reform agenda.
The broader aim is to boost investor confidence, foster business-friendly climate, and augment ease of doing business across the country by introducing an element of healthy competition through a system of assessing states based on their performance in the implementation of BRAP.
In a departure from the previous years, where States and Union Territories were ranked, this year they have been placed under the four categories, Top Achievers, Achievers, Aspirers and Emerging Business Ecosystems.
The objective of assessing the States and Union Territories was not to create a hierarchy amongst them but, to create an enabling framework wherein learnings can be shared amongst them, which in turn will lead to a nationwide spill-over of good practices.
The assessment gives full weightage to the feedback obtained from actual users and respondents on the ground level, who provided their feedback about the effective implementation of reforms.