India's business climate has been continuously improving: NITI Aayog CEO
Kant also emphasised that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of ease of living for the citizens of India will be the government's focus.
India's business climate has been continuously improving and the government will work tirelessly to make India one of the easiest countries to invest and create wealth in, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Friday.
Kant also emphasised that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of ease of living for the citizens of India will be the government's focus.
Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog
His comments come a day after the World Bank announced the decision to pause publication of its global 'Doing Business Report' due to irregularities in reporting of data based on which countries were ranked on the basis of their business climate.
"India's business climate has been continuously improving, not for the World Bank's Index (ease of doing business) sake but to make India easy and simple," he told PTI.
"All of us in the government will continue to work tirelessly to ensure efficient and effective norms for MSMEs, businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs and make India one of the easiest countries to invest and create wealth,'' he said.
India jumped 14 places to the 63rd position in the World Bank's latest ease of doing business ranking. India has improved its ranking by 79 positions in five years (2014-19).
About the World Bank's decision, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said the World Bank should be carrying out a serious investigation into the irregularities in the reporting of data.
"The World Bank should undertake serious investigation into a number of irregularities witnessed in the reporting of data in its Doing Business Report and bring out the next report as soon as possible," Kumar told PTI.
On Thursday, World Bank said that a number of irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data in the Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports, published in October 2017 and 2019. The changes in the data were inconsistent with the Doing Business methodology, it said in a statement.
The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank has been briefed on the situation as have the authorities of the countries that were most affected by the data irregularities, the World Bank had said, adding that "publication of the Doing Business report will be paused as we conduct our assessment".
The multilateral lending institution will be conducting a systematic review and assessment of data changes that occurred subsequent to the institutional data review process for the last five Doing Business reports, as per the statement.
The rankings are based on a country's performance on 10 indicators. They are starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency.
Edited by Kanishk Singh