KOCHI: Outrightly rejecting V D Satheesan’s accusations that the LDF government painted a rosy picture of the state’s business environment, Industries Minister P Rajeeve on Monday slammed the leader of Opposition for attempting to “belittle” Kerala’s achievements ahead of the key global investment summit.
The minister, while contesting each and every charge raised by the Congress leader, especially took objection to Satheesan mocking the state’s rapid rise to the top of the list of the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ rankings, saying the World Bank had discontinued the index in 2021 itself after massive discrepancies were reported on the ranking system.
“I had already stated that a new method is being followed to arrive at the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ ranking from last year onwards. Unlike the earlier evaluation based on one uniform ranking, the states are now categorised into Top Achievers, Achievers, Aspirants and Emerging Business Ecosystems under the BRAP 2020 assessment method.
Last year, we were included in the third category, but this time around, we are in the Top Achievers list. This is for carrying out the 30 reforms for ‘Ease for Doing Business’ prescribed with over 95% accuracy,” Rajeeve explained.
Last year, too, the state topped the ‘Achievers’ category going by the reforms that it had introduced but ‘the feedback’ received didn’t match the same standards, which resulted in Kerala being included in the third category, he said.
Rajeeve underlined that the state now enjoys an investor-friendly environment.