BHUBANESWAR: Odisha has improved its Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) rank by moving from the previous 29th place to one among the achiever states in the country by implementing over 90 per cent (pc) of the reforms suggested by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
As per the Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) 2020 assessment report released by DPIIT at New Delhi on Thursday, Odisha has been categorised amongst the six ‘achiever’ states along with industrially developed Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh with a score of more than 80 pc in the user-feedback methodology.
BRAP 2020 was the fifth edition of the reform exercise. It had 301 reforms spread over 15 themes and over 40 reform areas, which drove transformation in digitalisation, transparency and investor confidence in the country. Some of the major reforms carried out by the State included setting up the new PAR-e-SHRAM portal, a one-stop-solution for all services and its integration with GO-SWIFT portal, auto-renewal through online payment and elimination of renewal of eight B2G services, digitisation of land records and excise services, online systems for drug licenses and environmental clearances.
The Odisha government had taken several initiatives to create awareness about the services offered by various departments after the set back received in the BRAP-2019 cycle. Principal Secretary of Industries department Hemant Sharma said a major reform undertaken was the industry care field visits by senior government officials in order to interact with MSMEs as well as large industries looking to seek resolution for their grievances.
“Seven industry care field visits were taken up covering 18 districts where over 340 issues from over 140 major industries as well as 100 plus issues from around 80 MSMEs were discussed and resolution was fast-tracked in last two years,” he said. The State government has also undertaken major reforms to simplify clumsy regulatory compliances by bringing in over 400 services under the Odisha Right to Public Services Act, 2012 to ensure time-bound delivery of G2B and G2C Services.
Besides, district investment promotion agencies were constituted in 10 districts to provide investment facilitation and aftercare services at the district level. The single window system GO SWIFT was also upgraded with best-in-class features like a unified payment system with trickle feed mechanism.
The GO SWIFT system has received 1,384 large and MSME applications with a potential investment of around `5 lakh crore after these reforms in last two years.