Odisha drops to bottom in ease of doing business
BHUBANESWAR: Odisha has plummeted to the bottom of the Centre’s ‘ease of doing business’ rankings for states from the 14th place it had occupied in the previous edition, published in July 2018. The development comes just days after the NITI Aayog ranked Odisha among the top five export-friendly states in the Export Preparedness Index (EPI), behind Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.
Odisha shares the 29th and last rank with states and Union Territories like Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura in the fourth edition of Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP-2019) rankings of states released by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday.
Industry minister Divya Shankar Mishra said the state’s ease of doing business could be gauged from the investments Odisha has been attracting. “Our ease of doing business is among the best,” Mishra said. The state has cleared investments worth more than Rs 2 lakh crore in the last fiscal and the projects are in different stages of implementation.