NEW DELHI: With four months left to implement reforms to make doing business easier, India is targeting 90 measures including quicker construction permits, simpler registration of new companies and Aadhaar-based identification of directors to achieve a higher ranking in the World Bank ’s annual listing.This time, India has one month less to implement the steps because the World Bank has advanced the deadline for submission to May 1 for the next set of rankings, usually announced in October.During a review by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, which is the nodal agency for ease of doing business ranks, several new reforms have been suggested by the finance, urban development and corporate affairs ministries, among others.The Department of Financial Services will consider doing away with the requirement of providing a company seal to open a bank account. It has been proposed that cash refunds on import of capital equipment should be given within a year instead of the current system of claiming input tax credit to improve ease of paying taxes.India jumped a record 30 places to the 100th spot in the World Bank Doing Business rankings benchmarked to June 2017. It aims to be in the top 50.The industry department proposed a set of reforms for the ministry of corporate affairs, including replacing the digital signature and director identification number with Aadhaar.The DIPP suggested the move to bring down the number of procedures, cost and time taken to acquire DIN and digital signatures. “The World Bank does not count obtaining a national ID as a separate process. We can easily reduce time by 10 days, which will improve our rank globally,” a senior government official said.While drawing up the reform agenda, it was suggested that digital signatures be replaced with user names or one-time passwords.The ministry of corporate affairs will also consider doing away with the procedure of giving a separate permanent account number to companies after registration since one is allotted at the time of registration itself. The ministry has been asked to make the Simplified Proforma for Incorporating Company Electronically (SPICe) compulsory for reserving names and to scrap all other options. DIPP has written to the urban development ministry to engage with frontline staff involved in giving construction permits.While India claimed to have shifted all procedures online, feedback gathered by the World Bank has shown otherwise. The requirement of a no objection certificate from the fire department is still an offline process. “On ground, the users still need to obtain permissions offline… World Bank has shared the feedback they received on construction permits, which refuted some of our claims. We will fix it,” the senior government official said.India is still ranked low on starting a business (156), dealing with construction permits (181), registering property (154), trading across borders (146) and enforcing contracts (164). The World Bank’s latest ranking of 190 countries was topped by New Zealand followed by Singapore and Denmark.Focus We do need to be proactive when it comes to ease of doing business. However, while the World Bank’s report focuses on Mumbai and New Delhi to form the big picture, the Centre needs to urge policy reform and follow through action on a truly pan-India basis. Also, on four parameters: Dealing with construction permits; enforcing contracts; starting a business; and registering property, India is seen as faring especially poorly. It follows that if we can improve matters under the four heads, in Delhi and Mumbai to begin with, India’s overall rank would rise significantly.