Andhra Pradesh retains top position in ease of doing business, Telangana slips to third

New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh retained its top position in ease of doing business ranking 2019, followed by Uttar Pradesh and Telangana. The Department of Industrial Promotion and Internal Trade(DPIIT), Government of India has released the State Business reform Action Plan 2020 (State BRAP) rankings for the states and union territories on Saturday.

The commerce and industry ministry released the State Business Reform Action Plan Ranking on Saturday. Uttar Pradesh from North India, Andhra Pradesh from South India, West Bengal from East India, Madhya Pradesh from West India and Assam from North East India topped the ranking. Among Union Territories, Delhi got the top spot. The ranking is based on the implementation of business reform action plan.

In a video conference chaired by Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister for Finance, Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and all ministers of state government holding the industries portfolio has released the rankings.

Andhra Pradesh stood first in the overall ranking of the State Business process reforms undertaken during 2019. These rankings represent the ease of doing business in the state with increased transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of the government regulatory functions vis-a-vis the business enterprises.

M Gautam Reddy, Minister for industries, Government of AP also participated along with the industry department officials and highlighted about the efforts taken by the AP state government in ensuring right business reforms leading to real ease of doing business with low cost of starting an enterprise and quick single desk approvals with 99.9% compliance to the SLAs.

He also mentioned that the "AP state Government led by Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is the first state to have come up with the ReSTART package post-COVID-19 for business continuity of MSMEs while fulfilling 90% of the promises made to the electorate and businesses in the very first year of governance," M Gautam Reddy.

He further mentioned that these rankings which were done through a survey of the investor community during January and February 2020 stand testimony to the investor-friendly commitment of the state and transparent governance already in place.

Andhra Pradesh has undertaken several reforms in the last year as a part of Ease of Doing Business (EODB) initiative to enable a conducive business environment in the state. These reforms range from the development of online systems, enhancing transparency to regulating inspections covering the entire lifecycle of the business.

The Business Reform Action Plan 2019 released by DPIIT, GoI contains a list of 80 reforms (187 reform action points) to be implemented by 19 State departments. Andhra Pradesh has achieved 100% compliance to the 187 reform action points by DPIIT-World Bank as a part of BRAP 2019 As a part BRAP 2019, multiple new reforms for facilitating simpler processes for setting up of industries were introduced such as exempted all shops and establishments from renewal under AP Shops & Establishments Act-1988, introduced Single Integrated returns under all labour laws.

Andhra Pradesh also introduces first of a kind provision introduced to facilitate Boiler inspection by empaneled Boiler, Operation Engineers and third-party agencies, introduced categorization of industries based on risk to facilitate simpler inspections under Boilers Act, Amended Single Desk Policy, 2015 to include new features and services and set up special court in Vijayawada with a jurisdiction to exclusively deal with commercial disputes in addition to the special court in Visakhapatnam. EOM