New Delhi, July 12 (KNN) Delay in formation of industrial policy has made Punjab fall back in ease of doing business ranking said Badish Jindal, President of Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association (FOPSIA).

Punjab has been placed among the aspirers list in the performance based ease of doing business rankings of state and union territories in the country.

The rankings prepared by the World Bank and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the Business Reform Action Plan 2017, has placed Punjab at 20^th position followed by Kerala, Jammu Kashmir and Delhi on the basis of reform evidence and feedback.

The Punjab’s overall ranking in the ease of doing business has dropped from 12^th position that it got last year to 20^th position.

While 201 reforms had already been implemented in Punjab, 166 required action at the time of preparation of report and another five were not applicable, according to data released by DIPP.

The state performed poorly on reform evidence score based with a score of 54.77% on evidences it submitted whereas it did well in user-feedback with 70.10%, introduced for the first time, to ascertain whether the reforms have reached the “ground level” or not.

According to DIPP release, among the top 5 reform areas that includes access to information and transparency enablers, Single window, availability of land, construction permit enablers and environmental registration enablers, the state scored highest in construction permit enablers while zero in single window.

Talking about the Punjab performance in ease of doing business with KNN India, Badish Jindal President of Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association (FOPSIA) said that the main reason behind falling back in ease of doing business index is delay in formation of industrial policy.

Commenting over the zero score in single window he said that because of corruption, the departments were not ready for single window and that’s why Punjab got zero in this reform area.

He said falling behind 8 points compared to previous year will definitely create a negative impact on state in terms of attracting investment.

DIPP in collaboration with the World Bank conducted an annual reform exercise for all states and UTs under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP).

The aim of this exercise is to improve delivery of various Central Government regulatory functions and services in an efficient, effective and transparent manner.