Having returned from New Delhi,Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das today held a meeting with Chief Secretary,Principal Secretaries and Secretaries inside Poject Bhawan in Ranchi and told them to work and improve the state’s rank in the World Bank’s index of “ease of doing business”.

The CM,who was reviewing the works of the state government in connection with the World Bank method to evaluate ease of doing business, directed them to keep in mind the criteria set by the World Bank under -ease of doing business’- and fulfill them by April 30 so that the rank of Jharkhand can be improved over its record of third position in 2015.

The CM said that the World Bank had set a set of criteria to evaluate ease of doing business in the state/country.These criteria are linked with different departments-their reccords and performances.And as such, the heads of these departments must take note of them and meet these criteria,directed Das.

Notably,in the list of countries/states,India and Jharkhand had gained 130 and third rank respectively in World Bank’s criteria index of ease of doing business in 2015.Among the states,Gujarat had gained first position in the same year.

The meeting was attended among others by Chief Secretary Raj Bala Verma,the CM’s Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar,Principal Secretary(Urban Development)AK Singh,Principal Secretary(Commercial Taxes)KK Khandelwal,Principal Secretary(Personnel) Nidhi Khare,Secretary(Revenue)KK Sone,the CM’s Secretary Sunil Kumar Barnwal,Jharkhand Raj Vidut Vitran Nigam Ltd Chairman-cum -managing Director Rahul Purwar,and Director(Industry)K.Ravi Kumar.

As per wikipedia,the Ease of Doing Business index is meant to measure regulations directly affecting businesses.It does not directly measure more general conditions such as the state/nation’s proximity to large markets, quality of infrastructure, inflation, or crime.

In fact,the state’s ranking on the index is based on the average of 10 subindices:
Starting Business- Procedures, time, cost and minimum capital to open a new business
Dealing with construction permit– Procedures, time and cost to build a warehouse
Getting Electricity– procedures, time and cost required for a business to obtain a permanent electricity connection for a newly constructed warehouse
Registering Property– Procedures, time and cost to register commercial real estate
Getting Credit– Strength of legal rights index, depth of credit information index
Protecting Investors– Indices on the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits
Paying Taxes – Number of taxes paid, hours per year spent preparing tax returns and total tax payable as share of gross profit
Trading Across Boarders – Number of documents, cost and time necessary to export and import
Enforcing Contracts – Procedures, time and cost to enforce a debt contract
Resolving Insolvency– The time, cost and recovery rate (%) under bankruptcy proceeding.

*Picture shows Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das holding review meeting with Chief Secretary Raj Bala Verma,Principal Secretaries,Secretaries and Director of different Departments to fulfill Ease of Doing Business criteria fixed by the World Bank inside Project Bhawan in Ranchi on April 21,2016.