Day 68 – Q 3.How do measures of transparency and accountability enhance the ease of doing business? Explain with the help of suitable examples.

3. How do measures of transparency and accountability enhance the ease of doing business? Explain with the help of suitable examples. 

 कैसे पारदर्शिता और जवाबदेही के उपाय व्यापार करने में आसानी को बढ़ाते हैं? उपयुक्त उदाहरणों की सहायता से समझाएँ।

Introduction:

India has always been regarded as a place where doing business is complicated in the wake of multiplicity of applicable laws and plethora of authorities and departments to deal with. ‘Ease of doing business’ refers to the regulatory environment in a country to set up and operate a business. India has moved 14 places to 63rd among 190 nations in the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking. 

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• India has risen rapidly in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) rankings in the past five years. This rise has occurred alongside widespread deregulation, which has seen measures to increase transparency and accountability along with attempts to introduce labour and land laws.
• Accountability signifies the concern and duty of government institutional workers to perform their activities in the best interests of the public and that institutional officials should take responsibility for their activities performed. While transparency is a situation in which government institutional activities and other supporting organizational activities are performed in an open way without any secrets held behind, so that the public can believe and trust that these organizations are honest and fair.
• In this regard, following points clearly demonstrates the improvement of ease of doing business due to measures which improve transparency and accountability :
• TAMRA which stands for Transparency, Auction Monitoring and Resource Augmentation” web based portal and Mobile APP has been conceptualized to provide the status of mining block auctioned/ to be auctioned in India to the public in a ‘transparent’ manner. This measure has helped improve ease of doing business as well as augment state coffers.
• India merged the application procedure for getting a Permanent Account Number (PAN) and the Tax Account Number (TAN) for new businesses.  It also improved the online application system for getting a PAN and TAN. This measure ensures smoothing of procedure for ease of doing business.
• Getting credit and resolving insolvency: Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code passed in 2016 provides for a 180-day time-bound process to resolve insolvency. The Code allows secured creditors to opt out of resolution proceedings, and specifies that a debtor will be immune against creditor claims during the 180-day insolvency resolution process.  Prior to the passage of the Code, it took 4.3 years in India to liquidate a business. This has improved accountability in India with regards to liquidating a business.
• India made paying taxes easier by requiring that payments to the Employees Provident Fund be made electronically. Further, it introduced measures to ease compliance with corporate income tax. This has further increased transparency along with helping improving ease of doing.
• Enforcing contracts: The introduction of the National Judicial Data Grid has made it possible to generate case management reports on local courts. This has fast tracked the judicial process which is vital measure for improving accountability and transparency.
• Further, Authorities in Mumbai and New Delhi made it easier to obtain construction permits by allowing the submission of labour inspector commencement and completion notifications through a single-window clearance system. Also, Delhi streamlined the process, reduced the time and cost involved, and improved building quality control by strengthening professional certification requirements. Such efforts in major metropolitan areas have helped in ensuring accountability towards faster clearances and further helping ease of doing business.

The rankings in the EDB index point to transparent rules on the ground to promote efficient markets, rev up enterprise and boost the development delivery mechanism, and, therefore, help change perceptions and investor sentiments. But it cannot be enough said that the rankings are merely indicative and very much work-in-progress.

• India still scores very low when it comes to registering property. High stamp duty rates seem a perverse incentive to undervalue and underreport real estate transactions. There remains a host of rigidities in housing and real estate that need to be reformed to promptly do away with extensive opacity.
• India also scores lowly for starting a business. This is being sought to be improved through measures like the decision to abolish filing fees for the simplified online format for incorporating a company and its memorandum and articles of association.

Conclusion

Accountability and transparency are treated as major building pillars for governing democratic nations in recent years. Citizens who are paying their taxes would like to know exactly where their money is spent and all the developments that has happened in the country. Consequently, higher the transparency and accountability better the stability of the country’s economy.