Modi will brainstorm on measures which can help India be a part of the top 50 in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting with top industrialists and policymakers on Monday to brainstorm on measures required to realise his vision of India breaking into the top 50 in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index, sources said.
The meeting ‘Reflections on Ease of Doing Business’ is being organised by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion as the government gears up for India’s ranking to leapfrog on the ‘Doing Business’ index next year and boost the country’s investment attractiveness, the sources told PTI.
Industrialists like Anand Mahindra and top representatives from industry chambers CII, FICCI and Assocham, among others, would share their inputs and feedback for the roadmap required to move ahead in that direction, they added.
Senior government officials from the team that worked on reforms to improve the ease of doing business parameters taken into account by the World Bank will also participate in the meeting.
India’s rank rose 23 places to the 77th spot in the ‘Doing Business’ rankings released on October 31.
The surge in ranking came as a shot in the arm for the Narendra Modi-led government which faces strong dissenting voices from opposition parties ahead of the general elections next year.
India was ranked 100th in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report last year. -PTI
I honestly don’t know how this Ease of Doing Business Index is compiled. Apparently it covers only Delhi and Bombay, has some anodyne stuff like getting an electricity connection, issue of construction permits – the mother of all rent seeking endeavours in India -, the time taken to register a business. None of my businessmen friends has a happy story to tell, even if one strips out the disruption caused by demonisation and GST. 2. On a more substantive note, Delhi and Bombay have never been further apart. I remember the Make in India event, India’s top tycoons flying in in their personal jets, a splashy presentation and manufacturing remains as flat as a chapati. Whatever may have been the initial expectations, industrialists as a class have had no discernible impact on public policy formulation, on the trajectory the Indian economy has taken. They have always been a diffident lot, afraid to speak with candour even on the Union Budget. Today there is a total communication gap; the loss is India’s.