'World Bank's biz cities report must have measurable targets'

The government on Friday said it has raised concerns with the World Bank about various indicators used in the ease of doing business report which, due to its name, "often gets mistaken to refer to general business environment".

The World Bank group has been publishing annually 'Doing Business Report' since 2004. The report provides specific information on ease of doing business in 189 countries. As per the report, India had slipped three notches to 134th spot.

"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," Corporate Affairs Minister Arun Jaitley said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

With regard to the report, India has already intimated about its concerns to the World Bank.

 "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," Jaitley noted.

The report does not set any measurable targets for improving the ranking of the country, he said.

He added: "...government has taken several steps such as simplification and rationalisation of existing rules, introduction of e-governance, reducing fee 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."