In the World Bank’s latest ‘Doing Business’ report, India’s place remained unchanged from last year’s original ranking of 130 among the 190 economies that were assessed on various parameters. However, the last year’s ranking has been now revised to 131 from which the country has improved its place by one spot. 

The government has been making efforts to further improve the ease of doing business and aims to bring the country in the top 50. 

So how did India do on various metrics? 

• In terms of getting electricity, the country’s position has jumped to 26th spot from 51st place last year. 
• When it comes to trading across borders, the ranking has moved up one place to 143, and in enforcing contracts the rise is of six spots to 172nd position. 
• However, with respect to starting a business, the ranking has slipped four places to 155th spot and in the case of dealing with construction permits by one rank to 185th. 
• As per the report, India’s ranking in terms of protecting minority investors dropped to 13th place from 10th position last year. 
• With regard to getting credit, the ranking has fallen by two places to 44. 
• When it comes to ‘distance to frontier’ — a measurement of the gap between an economy’s performance and the best practice score of 100 — India’s score has improved to 55.27 this year from 53.93 last year. 

What the government said

Expressing disappointment over no change in India’s ranking in the World Bank’s index on ease of doing business, the Indian government regretted that the report did not take into consideration 12 key reforms undertaken by the government. 

The top 10 countries in terms of ease of doing business are: 

• New Zealand
• Singapore 
• Denmark
• Hong Kong 
• South Korea
• Norway 
• the UK
• the US 
• Sweden 
• former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. 

The only consolation? Pakistan is ranked 144th in the list. 

with inputs from PTI