India won’t give up on Ease of Doing Business despite World Bank suspending report this year

World Bank Doing Business report paused.

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: With an aim set on bringing foreign money to India, the government will continue to work towards ensuring efficient and effective norms for MSMEs, businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. “All of us in the government will continue to work tirelessly to ensure efficient and effective norms for MSMEs, businesses, startups & entrepreneurs and make India one of the easiest countries to invest and create wealth,” Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, told PTI in an interview on Friday. The World Bank has recently decided to pause the publication of its Doing Business Report in the wake of a number of irregularities in reporting of data based on which countries were ranked with regard to the business climate.

Under the BJP government, India made tremendous leaps towards improving its Ease of Doing Business ranking. The country jumped 79 positions during the five year period 2014-19 and according to the latest assessment, India stands at 63rd position.

India’s business climate has been continuously improved but the same has not been done for the World Bank’s Index (Ease of Doing Business) sake but to make India easy and simple to invest in, Amitabh Kant said, commenting on the World Bank decision. Further in focus, the government’s agenda is also to enhance the ease of living for Indian citizens in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Ease of Living. Other countries which made significant progress in their 2020 rankings are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, and Nigeria.

“A number of irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data in the Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports, published in October 2017 and 2019. The changes in the data were inconsistent with the Doing Business methodology,” the World Bank said in a statement on Thursday. The World Bank has also briefed the Board of Executive Directors and also the authorities of the countries which were most affected by the data irregularities.