Why is Andhra Pradesh the Top State in 'Ease of Doing Business'?

In the new list of 'ease of doing business' released by the government on Tuesday, the top slot went to Andhra Pradesh, while the second place was taken by its neighbouring state Telangana.

They two states beat industrial states like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra scoring a 98.42 percent and 98.33 percent respectively in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion's third edition of Business Reforms Action Plan.

The reasons for the clear win are the reforms implemented by the state governments in areas like tax payment, minority investors protection, construction permits, ease in providing new electricity connections and registration of the property.

Andhra Pradesh provides registration under the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996 through a single online window system. Further, it has provided government data to the public through the department's website like the list of land banks available for industrial purposes for easy access to information and transparency.

One can also access information from the local government on land data from the last two years including statistics of land disputes, available infrastructure (roads, water, electricity, closeness to highways, railways lines, etc). The state government also allows third-party certifications instead of departmental inspections for labour and environmental law requirements.

The other states that made to the top nine were (in ascending order) Haryana, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan.