Niti Aayog's former vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya welcoming the India's impressive 30-point jump in ease of doing business ranking said that this was overdue. He said, the government had made a large number of improvements that did not get included last year. I am delighted this has been rectified in the 2018 rankings. He further added that the country as a place for business is a lot more attractive than its ranking suggests. “I have often said that India as a place to do business is a lot more attractive than the World Bank ranking suggests. This is because the bank collects its data in Delhi and Mumbai, not in the states with the best business environment such as Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.”
He added that the single most important factor, for this increase in ranking, has been the focused effort by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to “cajole' the relevant entities into making improvements to the ease of doing business in areas covered by the World Bank survey. Panagariya also said he has known for some time that the processes were undergoing improvement continuously after the present government came to office. But the recognition of this fact by a major international financial institution sends a very important signal. Panagariya also pointed that there are several areas where there is considerable scope for improvement. Prominent among them being registration of properties, enforcement of contracts, starting a business, construction permits and trading across borders.
Panagaryia also brushed aside concerns about growth and said India's macros are stable. He said that today we are macro economically very stable; inflation is low, current account deficit is low, our exchange rate has been stable, foreign exchange reserves are in good shape, so macro economically we are in a very good spot, fiscal deficit is also very much under control.