India Inc wants Centre to take more steps on ease of doing business

Industry representatives asked officials to "create more freedom for industry to perform".

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her officers on Thursday met representatives of India Inc and trade unions for pre-Budget consultations. While industrialists asked the Centre to take more steps to augment ease of doing business, trade bodies stressed minimum wages, an income-tax ceiling, and pensions.

Industry representatives, who included Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, Confederation of Indian Industry President Vikram Kirloskar, and Assocham President Balkrishna Goenka, asked officials to “create more freedom for industry to perform”.

The corporate leaders highlighted several issues, including income tax roadblocks coming in the way of mergers and acquisitions, or hobbling businesses.

“I have come here today to discuss only one thing — make doing business easy in the country. That was what my thrust was,” Mittal told media persons after the meeting.

“The idea is to create more freedom for industry to perform. The finance minister, with her associates and secretaries, received them (industry representatives ) very well. What we look forward to in this Budget is that it unleashes the energy of Indian entrepreneurs to do more,” Mittal said.

Expressing similar views, Assocham President Balkrishna Goenka said for “ease of doing business, states had to play an important role” and last-mile issues were there and needed to be resolved. Kirloskar said: “We talked about ease of doing business, which is the issue concerning many industries.”

RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group head Sanjiv Goenka said the discussions “centred more around what can be done to stimulate growth, to facilitate the ease of doing business”.

“The finance minister and her team were extremely open to all suggestions,” Goenka said, adding that “this is the first time I have seen this kind of response from the government”.

On the current slowdown and its impact on capacity utilisation across many industries, Goenka said industry recognised that it could take up to four quarters before capacity utilisation reached its peak.

Business Standard

India is likely to move up in Ease of Doing Business report of World Bank

India was 77th among 190 countries in the previous ranking.

India is likely to see some improvement in the annual Ease of Doing Business report of the World Bank, to be issued on Thursday.

The country was 77th among 190 countries in the previous ranking, an improvement by 23 places compared to its position a year before.

Thursday's improvement is unlikely to be as much and, hence, the country's rank might not reach the Narendra Modi government's target of 50th place.

India had broken into the club of the first 100 such nations in the 2018 report, when it managed to jump 30 places.

The 2019 report had named this as "one of the economies with the most notable improvement" for a third year in a row.

India was adjudged the fifth best performing nation in reforming the business environment that year.

The country had improved its ranks in six of the 10 sub-categories used by the Bank to judge the business climate.

However, its ranking saw a decline in two more, on paying of taxes and resolving of insolvency.

This was despite the fact that India had introduced the goods and services tax in 2017 and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code a year before.

Business Standard