Rajasthan: 6th State to Complete EoDB Reforms

Recently, Rajasthan has successfully undertaken the EoDB reforms i.e. ‘Ease of Doing Business’ reforms specified by the Expenditure Department under the Ministry of Finance. With this, Rajasthan has become the 6^th state to undertake Ease of Doing Business reforms.

Key Points

• After undertaking the Ease of Doing Business reforms, Rajasthan is now is eligible for extra funds of Rs 2,731 crore via open market borrowings.
• The other five states which have undertaken EoDB reforms are- Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka.
• The EoDB scheme was started by the central government in May 2020 with an aim to link granting of additional borrowing permissions to states undertaking the ease of doing business reforms.
• These reforms are completion of the 1st assessment of ‘District Level Business Reform Action Plan’; and implementation of computerized ‘central random inspection system’ and removal of the need to renew or approve registration certificates or licenses obtained by businesses under various Acts.
• As per the scheme, the government has increased the borrowing limit of states by 2 % of their GSDP. Half of this dispensation is linked to citizen-centric reforms taken by the states. Four citizen-centric areas for reforms are ease of doing business reform, power sector reforms, urban local body or utility, and implementation of one nation one ration card system.

Ease of Doing Business Index

It is an index that determines how friendly the environment for business in a country or region is. The World Bank publishes the Ease of Doing Business Report every year. Recently, many irregularities in the report were highlighted and the World Bank also notified some changes in the rankings of China.