Keen on improving its rankings in the national ease of business graph, the Maharashtra government has now challenged the World Bank’s methodologies in calculating its ranking.
In a recent presentation to the World Bank the government pointed anomalies in the way the State has been judged on parameters such as ease of getting construction permits, electricity connections, and registration of shops and establishments.
Points of difference
The State’s rankings were based on permits given to a warehouse and industrial connections over 150KVA, which were ‘random’ in nature, the government told the World Bank in its presentation. While the charge for grants of construction permit to warehouses was ₹5.78 lakh, the bank had mentioned it as ₹12.98 lakh, senior officials said. This now must be considered as ₹3.86 lakh.
“In fact, no warehouse proposal was even received in the last five years by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). A random selection was made, the basis of which is not even known,” the State said in its presentation on the measures taken by it to boost its Ease of Doing Business rankings. Senior officials said the ‘bifurcation and marking system for the rankings of constriction permit is not even known’. “Even your perception feedback methodology is not robust. Feedback is taken from the contributors who have never dealt with the construction permits,” the State said in its report.
Not on same page
Maharashtra and the World Bank are still locked in a disagreement over why industrial connections of over 150 kVA were considered. The bank has been claiming it taked a consumer 55 days to get connection in Mumbai, while the government maintains the permits are granted in a quicker time. The World Bank has claimed that the BEST order (PO232) issued in 2016 claimed power connections are availed in less than 15 days. But the bank’s analysis found the average time for securing a connection to be 30 to 55 days because integration of procedures is incomplete.
In the latest presentation, the government put forward for analysis 21 connections in the 100 kVA to 150 kVA range. It has said each connection has taken on average of nine days to gain approval at a cost of ₹20,253. Totally three procedures were used.
For the construction permit, the World Bank had said the cost of approval (due to reduction in permits and development charges) as a percentage of construction cost remained much higher (25.3%) as opposed to BMC’s claim of 1.73%. It that added approvals now cost a builder ₹5,64,753 as per the BMC but the actual cost remains at ₹12,78,937.
According to the recent assessment, total procedures has been reduced to eight from last year’s 42, while the total time of approvals has come down to less than 60. “We have reduced construction cost to as low as ₹3.86 lakh from ₹5.78 lakh,” a government official said.
