Telangana slips to third spot in Ease of Doing Business ranking; law department plays spoilsport

Source:-newindianexpress

HYDERABAD: The Telangana government has slipped from the second place to the third in the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) with regard to the implementation of the Business Reform Action Plan, according to a report released by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday.

The fall in the ranking is directly related to the nonadoption of two reforms in the Law Department. Of the total 190 reforms, Telangana had completed 187 — two were incomplete and one was rendered non-applicable.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s (DPIIT) website lists the non-completed reforms as “ensure that at least 9 per cent of the vacancies in specialised commercial courts have been filled up” and “design and implement a system that allows publishing of e-cause lists for commercial disputes in commercial courts”.

Government officials told Express that despite repeated reminders, the Law Department did not implement the reforms, resulting in a loss of points.

But they also pointed out that bagging the third rank, despite not completing all reforms, was a laudable task, especially because there are six States which attained full marks in reforms, and did not miss out on any points, like Telangana did.

“The points are calculated based on Feedback Reform.

The feedback for the completed reforms was so good that despite not achieving 100 per cent of the tasks, we were able to stand third,” an official said.

Meanwhile, data released by the Finance Ministry also shows that Telangana is among the top States to improve its EoDB rankings in the recent years. From the 13th position in 2015, Telangana scaled up to the third in 2019.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said: “I congratulate the top three States — AP, UP and TS — for consistently taking reform steps. I am sure this competition is only going to get healthier, more reforms will come in the times to come.”