India’s business climate ranking could be affected if the World Bank (WB) ordered a review of its flagship Doing Business (DB) reports for the past five years, during which India’s ranking soared 67 spots to 63.
On Thursday, the World Bank said it had halted publication of the DB report that was due in October and is reviewing data changes from the last five reports after discovering a number of irregularities. “We will act on the basis of the findings and the correct data retrospectively from the countries that were most affected by the irregularities,” he said.
The WB reports were embroiled in controversy in recent years with the resignation of former chief economist Paul Romer from his post in January 2018, claiming that methodological changes in the preparation of the report led to a downgrade in Chile’s ranking. socialist. Romer planned to review the reports for the past four years and recalculate the ratings.
India benefited from the methodological changes, Kaushik Basu, who oversaw the release of the reports during 2012-16, as the WB chief economist had put it, alluding to the “two great controversies” involving India’s rise from 130th place to 100, and Chile loses its ranking. between 2016 and 2017.
“For example, when India went from 142 to 130 between 2014 and 2015, the DB team and I calculated that only four of the 12 positions India had climbed reflected the changes that India had made, and the rest are attributed to changes in the DB methodology. “Basu wrote in an article published in Project Syndicate in February 2018. India’s ranking improved from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019, with the Union government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi making concerted efforts to improve its ranking of Business competitiveness NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant had recently said that India aims to be among the top 50 countries by 2021.
However, Basu defended the published reports under his supervision, while admitting that there were ways to influence the rankings without cooking data: “Although there were aspects of the DB rankings that I did not like, I cannot find the data manipulation charges. to be credible. Having personally overseen much of the process, which involves a very large team collecting economic data from around the world, I can attest to the multiple layers of checks and balances that exist, “he wrote.
The opposition did not miss an opportunity to target the Center for its excessive focus on improving DB’s ranking. Congressional Leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted: “Mr. Modi was busy feeling India’s improvement on the World Bank indices. Now, the Bank has stopped the publication of these classifications due to irregularities in the data and the methodology. So much energy from this government was wasted chasing a false classification, while our MSMEs continued to languish. “
The government will wait for WB to complete its internal review before reacting, said an official who was seeking anonymity. “Our data presentations have been transparent and based on genuine reforms on the ground. We have no problem with a review, “the official said.
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