Over the past two years, India’s performance on the World Bank’s ease of doing business has improved spectacularly. As seen in Chart 1, India has jumped 53 spots in two years, from 130th rank in 2016 to 77th in 2018.
In large parts, India’s improvement in rankings stems from better performance on indicators such as starting a business, dealing with construction permits and trading across borders. As seen in Chart 2, on starting a business, India has moved up to 137th rank in 2018, from 156th the year before. Similarly, on dealing with construction permits too, India has moved up to 52nd rank this year, up from 181st last year.
Much of the improvement on both these parameters, as seen in Chart 4, stems from a decline in the number of procedures that are involved in both these indicators, as well as the time taken to complete these procedures.
Similarly, on trading across borders too, India fares better, with its ranking improving to 80th in 2018, up from 146 in 2017. As seen in Chart 5, improvement on this indicator is also a consequence of a fall in time and costs related to border compliance. However, the country’s performance on registering property has worsened (Chart 6) due to an increase in the number of procedures required, as well as the time and costs involved therein.
India has continued to make modest improvements on indicators such as getting electricity and credit, though surprisingly, on resolving insolvency and paying taxes, the country did not make the expected gains (Chart 8). Presumably, as more data is available by the time next year’s rankings are calculated, the impact of the reforms enacted in these areas will be visible then.

Business Recorder