Key Terms & Concepts — UPSC Mains
Ease of Doing Business
"A composite index (formerly published by the World Bank) ranking countries on the regulatory environment faced by small and medium enterprises across the business lifecycle, from starting a business to resolving insolvency."
Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) was an annual report and global ranking published by the World Bank Group from 2003 to 2021, measuring how conducive a country's regulatory environment was to the operation of local businesses. The ranking aggregated scores across 10 dimensions of the business regulatory cycle: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. Each indicator measured the number of procedures, time, cost, and quality of relevant regulatory processes. India's EoDB journey is a landmark in economic reform narrative. India ranked 142nd in 2014; it climbed to 63rd by 2019 — an improvement of 79 ranks in five years, one of the fastest climbs recorded. This improvement was driven by reforms including GST implementation (unified tax replacing 17 levies), Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (replacing the slow Companies Act winding-up process), RERA (Real Estate Regulation and Development Act, 2016), digitisation of land records, e-court fee payments, and single-window clearances. The World Bank discontinued the Doing Business report after a 2021 data integrity audit found manipulations in historical data for several countries (though India was not implicated). In India, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Ministry of Commerce now administers the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) — an annual state-level EoDB ranking that assesses all states and UTs across 300+ reform points. The Jan Vishwas Act, 2023 (decriminalising 183 provisions across 42 central laws) and the National Single Window System are the latest reform instruments under the EoDB agenda.
Tested extensively in GS Paper 3 (Economy — industrial policy, investment climate, regulatory reform) and GS Paper 2 (Governance — regulatory quality, government performance). UPSC Prelims regularly asks India's EoDB rank history, the number of indicators, and specific reforms. Mains questions ask candidates to evaluate India's reform agenda, compare BRAP outcomes across states, and discuss whether EoDB improvements have translated to actual manufacturing growth (FDI inflows, job creation). Jan Vishwas Act, 2023 is a direct current affairs peg.
- 1 World Bank EoDB Report: published 2003-2021; discontinued after 2021 data integrity audit.
- 2 India's EoDB trajectory: 142nd (2014) → 130th (2016) → 100th (2017) → 77th (2018) → 63rd (2019) — 79-rank improvement in 5 years.
- 3 10 indicators: starting a business, construction permits, electricity, property registration, credit access, minority investor protection, tax payment, cross-border trade, contract enforcement, insolvency resolution.
- 4 Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016: reduced average insolvency resolution time from 4.3 years (pre-IBC) to ~1.6 years (post-IBC); recovery rate improved from 26 cents to ~46 cents per dollar.
- 5 Jan Vishwas Act, 2023: decriminalised 183 offences across 42 Acts — replaced imprisonment with fines for procedural violations.
- 6 DPIIT Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP): annual state-level EoDB ranking; Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat consistently rank among top performers.
- 7 National Single Window System (NSWS): launched 2021 — single portal for 32 central departments and 28 states for approvals and clearances.
India's Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016 is the centrepiece of EoDB reform cited in multiple World Bank reports. Before IBC, creditors recovered an average of 26 cents per dollar in 4.3 years; by 2022, recovery improved to approximately 46 cents in 1.6 years. IBC's creation of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) as a dedicated insolvency forum — replacing High Court winding-up proceedings — is credited as a structural reform that improved India's contract enforcement and insolvency resolution scores significantly.