BHUBANESWAR: Odisha has slipped to 29th position in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ rankings for 2019 released by the Centre on Saturday, raising questions on the claims of the State Government over attracting a large number of investment proposals during the period.
It is placed among the bottom eight states and UTs. While it was placed 14th in 2018 and 11th in 2016, the State was ranked 7th in terms of ease of doing business in 2015. Andhra Pradesh has topped the chart followed by Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.
The rankings of states based on the implementation of Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) had been launched by the Centre in 2015.
The BRAP for the year includes 180 reform points covering 12 business regulatory areas such as Access to Information, Single Window System, Labour and Environment.
The ranking that is expected to help attract investments, foster healthy competition and increase ease of doing business this time gave full weightage to the feedback from over 30,000 ground level respondents on the effectiveness of the reforms.
The Odisha Government has sharply reacted to the BRAP ranking and raised objections with the agency appointed by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). Minister for Industries and MSME Dibya Shankar Mishra said there seems to be incongruity in the results as states/UTs which have implemented no/much lower number of reforms have been ranked higher than states which have implemented significant reforms.
“Odisha has already implemented 180 out of 187 reform action points recommended by the Centre. Further clarifications on the evaluation methodology will be sought from the DPIIT,” he said. As per data released by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Odisha had received 18 per cent (pc) of the total investments, which was highest in the country, during the first six months of 2019-20.
Official sources claimed that Odisha attracted an investment of Rs 26,687 crore till October, 2019 and emerged as the fourth top state after Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra. In 2019, the State bagged over 6.2 per cent of total investment amount made nationally compared to 1.8 per cent in 2017 and 3.5 per cent in 2018. However, Odisha was not in the top-10 private investment destinations in 2017 and 2018.
The Government had also claimed on Thursday that it cleared 99 investment proposals worth `17,514 crore during the period from April to August amid Covid-19 pandemic.
Principal Secretary of Industries Hemant Sharma said the conducive business environment in the State is also reflected in the investments received by the State during the past two years.