The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, in coordination with States and Union Territories (UTs), has been undertaking a series of reforms to improve the business climate in the country. Starting with a 98-point Reform action Plan in 2014, successive Business Reform Action Plans (BRAPs) have been released by DPIIT covering more areas of reform.
DPIIT has prepared the 301-point Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) 2020, which is spread across broad reform areas, and seeks to promote and create sector-specific business environment enablers. Some highlights of the BRAP 2020 are:
As part of initial Business Reform Action Plans, the reforms instituted by States/UTs were recognized solely based on the evidence submitted by them on the online portal (www.eodb. dipp.gov.in), which was developed and launched in April 2016 and was the first such platform for knowledge sharing on regulatory compliance requirements across States/UTs in the country.
DPIIT felt that it was essential to ensure the regulatory reforms achieved its policy objectives, not just in in letter but in spirit as well i.e., investigate how these reforms were being felt by the private sector, the key stakeholder of this regulatory reform initiative. States would be well served by the knowledge of implementation gaps (difference between the regulation on paper and how they function in practice), and the reasons behind them.
Keeping the above in mind, DPIIT, since the previous edition of the Business Reform Action Plan, has instituted an assessment methodology which will be solely based on a pan-India comprehensive business-to-government (B2G) feedback exercise, to corroborate the status of the implementation of
reforms as declared by States and Union Territories. This report presents the results of this B2G feedback exercise, and will provide a good starting point for States to identify and implement solutions that will enable them to minimize the implementation gaps.