Odisha Seeks Centre’s Clarification On Low ‘Ease Of Doing Business’ Ranking

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has sought clarification from the Centre after the state featured at the 29th position in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ rankings for 2019.

The rankings for 36 states and union territories were evaluated by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and released by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday.

Ironically, Odisha was ranked among the top-five export-friendly states in the country by NITI Aayog recently.

The state government has questioned the evaluation strategy, stating that Odisha had received the highest amount of investments (18 per cent of total investments) in the country between April and September 2019, and carried out 180 of the 187 reforms recommended by the DPIIT.

The Business Reform Action Plan recommended 187 reform points on 12 business regulatory areas such as Access to Information, Single Window System, Labour and Environment.

Minister for Industries and MSME Dibya Shankar Mishra also said there seemed to be an incongruity in the results as the states/UTs that have implemented no or much lower number of reforms, were ranked higher than the states which have implemented significant reforms.

“Odisha has already implemented 180 out of the 187 reform action points recommended by the Centre. Further clarifications on the evaluation methodology will be sought from the DPIIT,” he said.

This year, Andhra Pradesh was ranked number one, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.

Notably, Odisha was ranked 14th in 2018, 11th in 2016, and 7th in 2015 in terms of ease of doing business.