Rajasthan has become the 6th state to complete the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ reforms stipulated by the finance ministry. With this, Rajasthan is eligible for additional funds worth Rs 2,731 crore through open market borrowings.

Other five states that have also completed the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ reforms are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. These six states have been granted additional borrowing permission of total Rs19,459 crore.

The scheme was started by the Centre in May 2020, under which it decided to link grant of additional borrowing permissions to states undertaking the ease of doing business reforms.

These reforms are completion of the first assessment of ‘District Level Business Reform Action Plan’; removal of the need to renew or approve registration certificates or licences obtained by businesses under various Acts; and implementation of computerised ‘central random inspection system’ under the Acts wherein allocation of inspectors is done centrally.

As per the scheme announced on May 17, the Centre has enhanced the borrowing limit of states by 2 per cent of their GSDP. Half of this special dispensation is linked to undertaking citizen-centric reforms by the states. These four citizen-centric areas for reforms are implementation of one nation one ration card system, ease of doing business reform, and urban local body or utility and power sector reforms.

The ease of doing business is an important indicator of the investment-friendly business climate. Improvements in this parameter enable faster future growth of the state economy