Team News Riveting
New Delhi, December 20
Linking the grant of additional borrowing permissions by the Government of India to the States to reforms in various citizen centric sectors has motivated the States to undertake reforms to promote Ease of Doing Business.
Five states have so far completed the stipulated reforms in the Ease of Doing Business. The States have been granted permission to mobilize additional financial resources to the tune of Rs 16,728 crore through open market borrowings. The states include Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
The Ease of Doing Business is an important indicator of the investment friendly business climate in the country. Improvements in the ease of doing business will enable faster future growth of the state economy. Therefore, the government of India had in May 2020, decided to link grant of additional borrowing permissions to States who undertake the reforms to facilitate ease of doing business.
In view of the resource requirement to meet the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of India had on May 17, 2020 enhanced the borrowing limit of the States by 2 percent of its GSDP. Half of this special dispensation was linked to undertaking citizen centric reforms by the States. The four citizen centric areas for reforms identified were (a) Implementation of One Nation One Ration Card System, (b) Ease of doing business reform, (c) Urban Local body/ utility reforms and (d) Power Sector reforms.
So far 10 States have implemented the One Nation One Ration Card System, 5 States have done Ease of Doing Business reforms, and 2 States have done local body reforms.
