There is euphoria in ruling party circles about the 30-place jump India has made in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index ranking. At a function in New Delhi to celebrate this on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to the extent of saying that EODB showed the “Ease of Good Life”. If this seems a little hyperbolic, World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva appeared no less enthusiastic about India’s prospects after this “rare” achievement, and suggested that by 2047 — meaning in 30 years’ time — when India celebrates 100 years of Independence, it would have become a “higher-range middle-income country”. It’s not clear if Ms Georgieva is an economist with a background in the complexity of India, but if she is she didn’t reveal what data and what projections had moved her to go that far.
This is the 15th edition of EODB rankings by the World Bank in which two cities each from 190 countries are chosen to assign ranks, and India has risen from being 130 on the list to 100. It’s this that the government is crowing about as a singular achievement and a result of “working very hard” and “bringing about structural changes” in the economy.
Just Mumbai and Delhi were chosen to study the vastness of India by World Bank officials and the study was completed before GST came to be implemented in July. So in what way it can be said to speak for the current fiscal year remains unclear. Moreover, the loud celebration glosses over the results of crucial EODB parameters.
For example, India is ranked 156 out of 190 countries in the matter of starting a business; on enforcement of business contracts we are at 164; on obtaining construction permits we languish at 181; and on registering property India figures at number 154. Is this anything to gloat over?
On the other hand, in the Human Development Index report released in May this year, we dropped down one position to number 130 out of 188 countries, well below our Saarc neighbours like Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and are in the same range as Congo, Namibia and Pakistan. Yet, the World Bank CEO believes we are on track to be a high-revenue middle-income country — which is more than that can be said for several countries of Europe — in three decades, say by the time children of a young Indian of reproductive age prepare to enter primary school.
This seems about as credible as the government’s oft-stated claim that the income of farmers will double in the next five years, and by then every Indian will be sleeping in his/her own home, not on pavements or in cowsheds. Posterity may hold us guilty of recording development only by soundbites.
