Bengal losing out on ease of doing business - slips to 15th position from 11th

Bengal is trying its best to boost its business potentials but, as things stand right now, it has slipped up on the ease of doing business - its rank now is 15th among all the states, last year it was 11th. Obviously, this raises questions on the efficacy of the initiatives taken by the industry department to attract industries to the state.
This situation is in spite of visits of Mamata Banerjee to Singapore, London, Germany and Bangladesh coupled with a number of road shows conducted by state finance minister Amit Mitra across the country - the objective had been to advertise the industry-friendly image of the state.
This has been reported in thestatesman.com dated 2 November 2016.

The ranking under Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms 2016 is done by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in partnership with the World Bank and has come at a time when chief minister Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to visit Bangkok to explore possibilities of investment in the state.
There are several factors responsible for this. These are (i) uncertainty over the land policy (ii) problems of extortion and (iii) poor work culture. Obtaining large tracts of land for setting up big industries is still a major problem in the state because industrialists are expected to buy land directly from individual landowners.
Incidentally, the newly formed state of Telengana, which occupied the 13th slot in 2015 has climbed to the first position along with sibling Andhra Pradesh. Other states like Haryana, Uttarakhand and Punjab that ranked below Bengal last year have performed better, climbing up from 14th to 6th, 23rd to 9th and 16th to 12th positions respectively. Obviously, the people in power need to focus more on aspects that are relevant to improve the business friendly image.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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