The World Bank Group has been publishing an annual report named ‘Doing Business Report’ since 2004 to provide specific information on Ease of Doing Business in over 189 nations across the globe. The Report ranks countries according to the regulations in place only for small and medium enterprises but which, owing to its name, often gets mistaken to refer to general business environment. Government has indicated its concerns about the indicators used, methodology, sample size, use of ranking, neglect of qualitative and country specific business environment, etc. to the World Bank.

The Report does not set any measurable targets for improving the ranking of the country. While no need for a Committee has been felt, Government has taken several steps such as simplification and rationalization of existing rules, introduction of e-governance, reducing fees etc. to ease doing business and also for improving the ranking of the country. Departments concerned with various aspects of simplifying procedure and bringing in efficiency and speed in clearance processes have given high priority to this issue.

This was stated by the Minister for Corporate Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

Ease of Doing Business indicators questioned; government prioritizes regulatory simplification and e governance to improve business conditions. Government questioned the representativeness and methodology of the Doing Business rankings, observing they focus on small and medium enterprise regulation and may misrepresent the wider business environment; concerns included indicator selection, sample size, use of rankings, and neglect of qualitative, country specific conditions. In response, the Government prioritized administrative reforms-simplifying and rationalizing rules, implementing e governance, reducing fees, and expediting departmental clearances-to improve regulatory efficiency without setting explicit ranking targets.