LUCKNOW: In a major boost to chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s efforts to transform the state into an attractive and business friendly destination for investors, Uttar Pradesh has jumped ten ranks since 2018 to land the second rank in the ease of doing business annual rankings which is part of the State Business Reform Action Plan 2019.
One spot behind Andhra Pradesh that has retained it’s first position, UP- which has a majority of its population still dependent on agriculture- has overtaken other leading industrial states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Telangana.
“This year’s exercise was based on ‘User Feedback’, therefore, attaining the 2nd rank across the country indicates that entrepreneurs have been receiving the true benefit of the reforms implemented by the government of Uttar Pradesh,” the state government said in a communique. The reforms, it said, were spread across areas like labour regulation, online single window, access to information and transparency, land administration, construction permit, commercial disputes, inspection enablers, etc.
Successive implementation of the ‘Nivesh Mitra’- the dedicated single window system of the state facilitating processing of applications by investors- has been an “instrumental” medium in the progress of the state on this front, the government said. Over a period of two years, the portal has received more than 2,29,000 no-objection certificate (NOC) applications, out of which 94% of the applications have been disposed off to grant NOCs/licenses to entrepreneurs, it said.
CEO of Invest UP, Neena Sharma said the portal had received a total of 18,120 grievances from entrepreneurs till date out of which 17,752 have been successfully resolved, clocking a resolution rate of 98%.
Additional chief secretary of the infrastructure and industrial development department, Alok Kumar said monthly ranking of all the 75 districts on ease of doing business parameters shall further help the state create a more conducive business environment.
In his tenure spanning more than three years, chief minister Yogi Adityanath has introduced a slew of reforms to help the state shed the tag of being “backward”, including giving subsidies to investors, creation of land banks for industrial development, development of infrastructure including the extensive network of expressways and bringing up Jewar and Kushinagar airports at its western and eastern ends. Some of the decisions taken by the state like the recent move to abolish most labour laws in the wake of an industrial slump due to the lockdown has also received widespread criticism forcing the government to backtrack and look for alternatives.
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