India is banking on major reforms it carried out in areas such as ‘starting a business’ and ‘dealing with construction permits’ to significantly improve its ranking in the next edition of the World Bank’s (ease of) Doing Business report, which is likely to be released in October.
World Bank team
In the report released last year, India was ranked 130 out of 190 countries — where the country was placed 155 in ‘starting a business’, and 185 in ‘dealing with construction permits.’
A World Bank team is slated to start a three-week visit to India from June 26 to assess the country’s performance, official sources said.
“This time, the strategy was to carry out major reforms in areas such as ‘starting a business’ and ‘dealing with construction permits’ where we were down in the list,” the official, who didn’t wish to be named, said. “We expect India’s ranking to vastly improve, mainly due to reforms in these areas and to a certain extent in other parameters including ‘resolving insolvency’.”
However, a higher ranking will depend on factors including the World Bank accepting these measures, the response from firms on whether these reforms have helped them as well as the performance of other countries, the official added.
Mumbai, Delhi
On ‘starting a business’, the time to start/operate a limited liability company in Mumbai and Delhi (the cities covered by the World Bank) – “including the procedures needed before, during and after registration – has been brought down from 26 days last year to just one day now,” according to the Government.
The ‘Simplified Proforma for Incorporating a Company electronically’ (SPICe) is now the only default application for incorporation of companies, the government said in its response to the World Bank Group.
Simplified procedures
The “mandatory” SPICe form combines five procedures — incorporation of a company, obtaining Director Identification Number, reservation of company name, application for Permanent Account Number as well as an application for Tax deduction and collection Account Number (TAN) — into one procedure, it added.
Besides, procedures associated with Employee State Insurance Corporation and Employee Provident Fund Organization have been made electronic and are now provided in real time. Inspection procedures associated with both have also been dispensed with.