The Economic Survey of 2019-20 dedicated a chapter to Ease of Doing Business in India. How has India improved on the doing business rankings of the World Bank? What does the Economic Survey say about the issues in the country? In the past fewyears, India made substantial progress in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business rankings. The Doing Business Rankings (DBR) rate countries on the basis of easeof doing business. It takes into consideration the business environment andregulations, and policies that shape it in the country. As per DBR 2020, India has improved its ranking by14 places to be ranked 63 out of 190 countries. However, detailed analysis ofIndia’s performance in each of the parameters studied reveals that India stillhas a long way to go to do away with red-tapism. This year’s Economic Survey has a separate chapter dedicated to the analysis of parameters which India needs to improve on. Theanalysis made an attempt to identify the bottlenecks in India’s businessenvironment. What is the Doing Business Report? Doing Business report is an annual flagshippublication of the World Bank Group which studies the regulations on businessactivities by presenting quantitative measures of regulation and protection ofproperty rights across countries. In simpler terms, the study comparesdifferent economies on the basis of how simple it is to operate a privatebusiness in the country. For this, thereport captures 12 areas of business regulation of which 10 areas are takeninto consideration for scoring and ranking the countries. These 10 areasinclude starting a business, dealing with construction permits, gettingelectricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minorityinvestors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, andresolving insolvency. The remaining two areas which are not used for rankingare regulation on employing workers and contracting with the government. How is DBR calculated? Questionnaires designed to make them comparable across differenteconomies and periods of time are administered to more than 15,000 localexperts across the world such as lawyers, accountants, business consultants andmany others who deal with these regulations in their work. The data thuscollected is subject to scrutiny and verification multiple times. The data collected for 41 indicators (e.g. number of procedures, timetaken, and cost) under the 10 areas covered for scoring and ranking arenormalised and rescaled for comparison. Based on the best and worst performingeconomies for each indicator, scores are calculated for each indicator for eacheconomy. The scores obtained are given equal weightage and the simple averageis taken for each topic. Average across the ten topics gives the economy’sDoing Business Score on a scale of 1 – 100 where 0 is for the worst regulatoryperformance and 100 for the best. The score indicates how far the economy is from the best performance anddifference in score shows the extent of change in the business environment inthe country. DBR is obtained by sorting the score and indicates the country’sperformance relative to other countries. The Economic Survey has stressed onDBR. What is India’s current position? India has been ranked 63 out of 190 countries in terms of ease in doing business.India is one among the top ten countries that have shown most notableimprovement in 2019 according to the report. Moreover, India has also beenrecognised as one among top ten countries that has taken maximum reforms in thelast three years. Since 2011, India’s improvement in ranking is the highest byany large country. In the South Asianregion comprising of eight countries- Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Afghanistan,Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka- India has been ranked first. New Zealandretained its first position in the world for ease of doing business. India’s overallposition stood at 133 (out of 183 countries) in 2009 and had further declined to 142 (out of 189 countries) in 2014.Since then, India has improved over 78 positions to secure 63rank(out of 190 countries). What are the areas in which India has improved? India’s ranking insix areas- dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, gettingcredit, protecting minority investors, trading across borders, and resolvinginsolvency- are ranked below 70. However, in terms of ease of startingbusiness, property registration, paying tax and enforcing contracts, India’sperformance is still lagging and needs attention. The Economic Survey has acknowledged this. India’s rankingwith respect to registering property has been declining over the years.However, with respect to the remaining nine parameters, India’s performance hasimproved in the past decade.