Govt to develop a Business Index for the country

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has taken up a pilot study to see the feasibility of developing a business index that would reflect the country's overall corporate environment.

Giving this information in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Sachin Pilot, Minister of Corporate Affairs, however, said that this is still at a preliminary stage and further details will emerge after completion of the pilot study and sharing its finding with other ministries concerned with the subject-matter.

The import can be understood when one examines the Doing Business 2012: Doing Business in a More Transparent World, which came out recently. The report assessed regulations affecting domestic firms in 183 economies and ranking the economies in 10 areas of business regulation, such as starting a business, resolving insolvency and trading across borders. This year's report data covered regulations measured from June 2010 through May 2011.

The report rankings on ease of doing business now also include indicators on getting electricity. Governments in 125 economies out of 183 measured implemented a total of 245 business regulatory reforms - 13% more reforms than in the previous year. China, India, and the Russian Federation are among the 30 economies that improved the most over time. However, India is ranked a poor 166th overall.

As far as the indicators are concerned, in case of 'Ease of doing business', India ranks 132. For the 'Getting electricity indicator', India ranks 98 and for 'Protecting investors', it ranks 46.

In fact, the government has said that the time taken to register a company has been reduced to 48 hours. Similarly, issue of Director's Identification Number (DIN) and name availability of company can now be done online within 24 hours.

Also giving this information in written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Sachin Pilot, Minister of Corporate Affairs, said that the World Bank Report titled Doing Business 2012: Doing Business in a more Transparent World maintains that for starting business in India 29 days are required. The report also identifies factors like sales tax, registration, purchase of office/lands/buildings etc, which are under the state governments as responsible for delays in initiating business.

Pilot further informed the House that to further improve the process of opening business and spur entrepreneurial growth, his ministry has set up a committee under the chairmanship of M Damodaran to conduct an in-depth study into the existing regulatory framework for doing business in India and to suggest a comprehensive policy framework for its improvement within 6 months.

It may also be noted that in the context of marrying technology with business and IT heads now going ahead with business goals as their primary areas of concern, Dataquest is also bringing alive the DQ Live event on December 12, 2012 in order to highlight the C-suite imperatives, achievements and challenges in the IT and related industries.