Miffed Kerala seeks clarity over Ease of Doing Business ranking
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A lake view of Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram: Miffed over being placed 28th in the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) ranking 2019 covering states and Union Territories, Kerala on Monday held that the process lacked clarity on some counts, and asked the Centre to disclose the criteria applied in deciding the ranking.
Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation's Managing Director S. Harikishore (KSIDC) said that his organisation, as the state's nodal agency for industrial promotion, has approached Centre seeking the details in this regard.
The EoDB ranking was published on September 5.
"The EoDB ranking, as published on the website of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), did not reveal either the criteria adopted for scoring and ranking or disclose the feedback from the states and UTs," Harikishore said.
As per the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) of 2019, each state had to complete 187 missions.
Of these, Kerala has accomplished 157 missions, which comes to 85 per cent of the mandated missions, but the details in this regard are not available on the website that put out the ranking, he said.
"While it was stated that the ranking would be decided based on the Reform Action points and feedback scores obtained from states and UTs concerned, the details of this process are also not available on the website. The details regarding the yardsticks adopted for the scoring and ranking have not been shared among the states or revealed them on the website, which has resulted in lack of clarity regarding the process of ranking. This is why KSIDC decided to approach the DPIIT on the very day the ranking was published," Harikishore added.
Lakshadweep, which has not carried out any reforms as cited on EoDB website, has been ranked 15th, he said, claiming several criteria announced by the DPIIT for EoDB ranking, based on BRAP in 2018-19, have been changed in the current ranking. For instance, the northeastern states and UTs have been considered together in the current ranking.
"Since 2016, as many as 52,137 MSME enterprises have been started in Kerala, which account for 40 per cent of all businesses the state has in this job-generating sector. The state has clocked an estimated investment of Rs 4,500 crore in MSME sector alone, which itself vouch for the strides made by Kerala in industrialisation," Harikishore said.