For now, Telangana is 2nd in ease of business

Hyderabad: Telangana state has been racing ahead in the preliminary rankings of Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) for this year. TS stands at second place in the preliminary rankings which are based on the details submitted by the state government on its implementation of business reforms. Haryana tops the list with a score of 69 per cent, and TS comes second at 68.46 per cent. Central teams will now visit the state to seek feedback from various stakeholders on the ground-level implementation of the reforms claimed by the TS government, before announcing the final ranking. AP is in the 15th place in the preliminary rankings.

Both Telugu states jointly secured first rank last year in the final rankings. Haryana tops the list this year while AP’s score is 51.49 per cent. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and industries minister K T Rama Rao have been regularly reviewing and monitoring the action-taken reports from all departments concerned with business and industrial approvals. With Mr Rama Rao getting weekly reports on the state's performance and the Chief Minister reviewing once a fortnight, officials have been kept on their toes.

Moreover, the global consultancy firm PriceWater-houseCoopers (PwC) is assisting the departments concerned in implementing the reforms.  Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of the Centre has mooted a ‘New Business Reform Action Plan’ for this year and has asked all states to furnish inputs, remarks, and suggestions in the new format. It said states would be ranked based on the level of compliance with these reforms.

There are 294 questions in the new ranking methodology covering 13 secretariat departments and 27 HoDs. Out of these, four secretariat departments, namely agriculture, health & family welfare, food & civil supplies and roads & buildings, have been newly included in ranking parameters. Eight departments, namely commissioner of agriculture, Ayush, directorate of medical and health, drug control administration, controller of legal metrology, R&B engineer-in-chief, mines and geology department and chief electrical inspectorate, have been added to the list of HoDs.