Telangana 'top achiever'

Hyderabad: Telangana has been adjudged as one of the seven states categorised as 'top achievers' in the implementation of Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) 2020. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has unveiled the fifth edition of BRAP in New Delhi on Thursday.

According to the report, the other six states in the top achievers' category are Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.

The BRAP 2020 included 301 reform points covering 15 business regulatory areas such as access to information, single window system, labour, environment, land administration & transfer of land and property, utility permits and others. The 118 new reforms were included to further augment the process.

Sectoral reforms with 72 action points spread across nine sectors - trade license, healthcare, legal metrology, cinema halls, hospitality, fire NOC, telecom, movie shooting and tourism were also introduced for the first time to expand the scope of reform agenda.The broader aim of BRAP was to boost investor confidence, foster business-friendly climate and augment 'Ease of Doing Business' (EODB) across the country.

Six other states- Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh - have also been placed under the 'Achievers' category. Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan and West Bengal figured in the 'Aspirers' category, while Andaman & Nicobar, Bihar, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Puducherry and Tripura have been clubbed under the 'Emerging Business Ecosystems' category.

The Finance Minister said the objective of assessing the states/UTs ( Union Territories) was not to create a hierarchy amongst states/UTs but to create an enabling framework wherein learnings can be shared amongst states/UTs which in turn will lead to a nationwide spill over of good practices.

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said the purpose of the BRAP exercise was to infuse a culture of learning from each other's best practices and improve upon the business climate in each state/UT with a unified objective for India to emerge as a most favoured Investment Destination across the globe.