Expressing “surprise and disappointment” over India’s ranking in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index, industry body CII said it has not captured key reforms undertaken by the government.
“We are a little surprised by the ranking,” CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee told reporters here. India’s ranking of 130th is not in tandem with the effort’s being made by the government to improve business environment in the country, he said.
CII Past President Sunil Kant Munjal said: “This result was surprising and disappointing because one can see the kind of work happening in the government”.
In the World Bank’s latest ‘Doing Business’ 2017 report, India’s place remained unchanged from last year’s original ranking of 130 among the 190 economies that were assessed on various parameters.
But the last year’s ranking has been revised to 131 from which the country has improved its place by one spot.
CII President Naushad Forbes said although the government is taking steps in this direction, more measures need to be taken to improve the ranking. “We need to work on some more steps. CII will engage both with states and World Bank on this,” he added.
“On the ground, there have been significant changes in ease of doing business which are insufficiently captured in the latest World Bank rankings,” he said.
This year’s report takes into account the position as of June 1, and therefore does not include crucial changes such as GST and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code which are taking effect later, Forbes said.
Many reforms that have taken place with the monitoring of DIPP at the state level are not considered and do not reflect in the country wise ranking, he added. He said CII has been working closely with all stakeholders including the World Bank, DIPP, and state governments as also industry to identify and resolve roadblocks to Ease of Doing Business.
The industry chamber has also developed a dashboard on improving ease of doing business. As the steps taken by the Centre and the states take time to evolve across the country, “we are confident that the World Bank Doing Business Report in later years would reflect the improvement in Ease of Doing Business”, Forbes said.