Progress Report on Ease of Doing Business

Ease of Doing Business, by its very name and on account of greater emphasis laid on it by Modi Government, has become less than non familiar in the country and to attract investment both from within the country and outside, it has proved an opportunity for many Indian States to perform in competitive zeal in order to get the attractive ranking. Otherwise the term “Ease of Doing Business” is an index, an insight like report published by the World Bank consisting aggregate figure that includes different parameters which define the ease or  open unrestricted conditions of doing business.  It would mean less of avoidable obstacles from different agencies,Governmental and ancillary ones, for a business entity to produce and market goods and services.
Could the State of Jammu and Kashmir not maintain, if not improve upon, the performance it showed last year by showing quite satisfactory improvement in its performance in the area of Ease of Doing Business ? It may be recalled the State had climbed up nine positions in the ranking in the area under reference last year and as a natural corollary, it was expected that the position  could  not be afforded  to allow suffer slippages. The ground realities present a stagnant, if not dismal performance and that the State having failed to register even a grain of progress in the latest index grading cannot be taken lightly and must be a cause of concern.
Other things remaining the same, should Jammu and Kashmir  slip down in the State ranking, jointly prepared by the World Bank and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) , Government of India ,  as it is  tremblingly standing  on 22nd pedestal among 34 States and Union Territories in the country? Ease of Doing Business is , in simpler words, an index calculated or computed by aggregating the distance to frontier scores of an economy .The distance to frontier score simply means where do we stand on the scale, right from 0 to 100. If Jammu and Kashmir State, for example, scored 50 points, we can safely say that State’s economy is 50 percentage points away from the frontier. Distance to this “frontier” in the instant case,include permissions and sanctions for construction, getting registrations, availability of credit at reasonable cost, enjoying a uniform and simplified tax payments and the like.
It would be interesting to know where the State faltered on these parameters or due to other reasons to get a lower ranking so that remedial measures could be taken in right earnest. Andhra Pradesh has maintained the lead on continuous basis followed by Telangana and Haryana. When a newly born StateTelangana can earn above the average ranking levels, to be precise 100 percent in their Reform Evidence Score,why not Jammu and Kashmir – where talent and potential  in abundance in the requisite area  are available. Jammu and Kashmir State could score only 36.47 percent and 6.41 percent in Reform Evidence Score and Feedback score respectively, a disappointing performance, indeed.
The better performing States as referred herein, by dint of their performance, have proved on the contrary that industrially advanced States like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu alone could show better results.The final rankings are arrived at, in the instant cases, after a  combination of Reform Evidence Score and Feedback Score. It is expected that the State of Jammu and Kashmir despite obvious constraints can pull on and emerge among the top ranking States on the horizon of Ease of Doing Business.

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