Port Blair, Sept. 6: Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, announced the 4th edition of Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) ranking of states on 5th September, 2020. Andaman & Nicobar Islands, improving its position from 31st in the last BRAP ranking, has been ranked 22nd, surpassing 14 States like Bihar, Kerala, Odisha and UTs like Dadra & N. Haveli, Puducherry, Chandigarh etc of mainland India.

Ranking of States based on the implementation of Business Reform Action Plan started in the year 2015. The Business Reform Action Plan 2018-19 includes 180 reform points covering 12 business regulatory areas. The larger objective of attracting investments and increasing Ease of Doing Business in each State was sought to be achieved by introducing an element of healthy competition through a system of ranking states based on their performance in the implementation of Business Reform Action Plan. The ranking this time gives full weight age to the feedback from over thirty thousand respondents at the ground level, who gave their opinion about the effectiveness of the reforms.

The Andaman & Nicobar Administration is working on improving the infrastructure capabilities for easing the business requirements and improving the investment scenario in these islands. In this line the recent laying of underseasubmarine Cable from Chennai to Port Blair has improvised the digital capabilities of these Islands, giving thrust to easing of doing business in these Islands. The project has also made these Islands one of the probable destination where the IT &ITeS companies may like to invest.

Further the recognition of these Islands as an important economic destination for trade and investment with proactive action of Govt. of India, has paved way for several new and ambitious projects which will provide a new platform for investments in these Islands. In order to enable the investments to happen the Administration is focusing on one of the prerequisite of such investments i.e “Ease of doing business”. The current BRAP for 2020-21 has been received with more than 300 areas out of which 118 areas are newly introduced. The A & N Administration shall focus to improve its performance for the overall economic development of these Islands.