The government is banking on big-ticket policy measures such as goods and service tax (GST) and the insolvency and bankruptcy code (IBC) to secure a higher ease of doing business ranking for India in the upcoming survey by the World Bank, set to be released in October.
The high optimism by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), which implements the reforms to ease business processes, comes weeks before the official team from the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC reaches India to finalise the country's global ranking.
On Thursday, senior DIPP officials said multiple reforms in the categories of paying taxes, trading across borders and resolving insolvency are expected to better India's score in the upcoming report.
In last year's report, ‘Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs’, India had jumped 30 places to the 100th rank among 190 countries. This year, the World Bank will take into consideration all reforms taken up by various government agencies before May 1, 2018.
“India had covered significant ground in easing the payment of taxes and resolving insolvency. This is a direct result of GST and IBC implementation,” a senior official said. Now, a year after GST, DIIP's assessments show that the preliminary pangs of adapting the new tax regime has passed for most companies.
“The number of hours taken to prepare, file and pay for the four taxes that have been subsumed under GST has gone down from 105 to only 36,” the official added.