India, Feb. 5 -- The Government of India has issued a release:
Key Takeaways
Trade and Investment Facilitation
Attracting Global Business and Investment
Rationalizing Penalty and Prosecution
Trust-based systems
What does it mean?
Decriminalization and Trust-Based Regulation
National Single Window System (NSWS)
Other Single Window Digital Platforms
For environmental clearances and post-approval compliance monitoring.
Provides a single window with the complete Profile of the GP, including details of Sarpanch/Secretary, demography, finances, assets along with activities taken up through the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP).
For appropriate land use, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand have eliminated land conversion requirements for select categories, reducing procedural delays.
Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) and District Reforms
Achievements of States under BRAP
Regulatory Measures
Sabka Bima Sabki Raskha (Amendment of Insurance Laws)
Credit Assessment Model (CAM)
Labour Reforms
GST 2.0
State-Led Reform Innovations
Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Odisha, Puducherry, and Tripura have introduced negative lists for mixed land-use zones, permitting all activities unless expressly prohibited.
Deferred duty payment is a mechanism for delinking duty payment and Customs clearance. It is based on the principle 'Clear first-Pay later'. The aim is to have a seamless wharf to warehouse transit in order to facilitate just-in-time manufacturing.
PARIVESH (Pro-Active and Responsive facilitation by Interactive, Virtuous, and Environmental Single Window Hub) 3.0
It integrates baseline data, afforestation land banks, inter-ministerial dashboards, and AI-enabled support to enhance transparency, predictability, and efficiency.
Serving as a unified reporting and tracking platform, it strengthens decentralised planning and improves the effectiveness of development fund utilisation.
Kerala
Tamil Nadu
Andhra Pradesh
e-Gram SWARAJ portal
In the area of building and development norms, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand have liberalised building bye-laws and simplified norms related to setbacks, FAR, parking, and plot size, enabling higher land utilisation and smoother project execution.
The enhancement in the duty deferral period means extending the time allowed to pay customs or import duties after goods are imported, instead of paying them immediately.
In the labour domain, Bihar, Gujarat, Odisha, Maharashtra, and Telangana have removed restrictions on women working in a wider range of industries and commercial establishments.
Enabling Growth and Competitiveness
Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) has emerged as a cornerstone of India's economic reform agenda and is reaffirmed as a key pillar of growth and development. The Union Budget 2026-27 focuses on reforms aimed at digital trade facilitation, tax certainty, reduction in compliance and litigation, trust-based customs systems, and an investment-friendly tax regime. These measures build on sustained regulatory and institutional reforms undertaken over the past decade to simplify business procedures, enhance transparency, and reduce compliance burdens, thereby strengthening investor confidence across sectors.
The impact of these reforms is reflected in India's investment and enterprise expansion. During 2014-25, India attracted USD 748.38 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), a 143% increase over the previous 11-year period. Further, the number of active registered companies increased from 1.55 lakh in 2020-21 to 1.98 lakh in 2025-26 (as on 3 February 2026), indicating a growth of ~27% in 5 years. Continued Ease of Doing Business reforms (EoDB), aligned with the Viksit Bharat @2047 vision, will remain vital for strengthening global value chain linkages and driving industry-led growth.
Budget Focus on Ease of Doing Business
The Budget reinforces India's EoDB agenda through measures aimed at enhancing tax certainty, reducing compliance burden, and promoting trust-based governance. Key reforms include rationalisation of MAT, simplification of dispute resolution, and decriminalisation of minor procedural offences. The Budget also advances customs and logistics reforms through digital integration and risk-based clearances to lower transaction costs and improve business efficiency.
MAT was introduced to bring into the tax net "zero tax companies" which in spite of having earned substantial book profits and having paid handsome dividends, do not pay any tax due to various tax concessions and incentives provided under the Income-tax Law.
From Clearance-to-Compliance Reforms
For several years, India has consistently pursued structural, regulatory, and digital reforms to create a more seamless and efficient business environment. The existing measures and their impact, as also highlighted in the Economic Survey 2025-26, reflect a sustained and coordinated effort by the Government and State administrations to decriminalise minor offences, streamline business approvals, reduce compliance burdens, and simplify regulatory procedures.
In order to further strengthen a trust-based regulatory framework, the Government has undertaken significant decriminalisation reforms. The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 decriminalised 183 provisions across 42 Acts, thereby reducing criminal liability for minor and technical offences. Continuing these efforts, the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2025, which comprises of 355 provisions, proposes amendments to 288 provisions for decriminalisation to promote Ease of Doing Business and 67 provisions aimed at enhancing Ease of Living. This highlights the Government's commitment to simplifying compliance and improving regulatory efficiency.
In addition to these decriminalisation reforms, the Government has undertaken a range of complementary measures to further rationalise regulatory frameworks, reduce compliance burden, and strengthen trust-based governance across sectors and States. Some of them include:
The NSWS is a digital platform which guides in identifying and applying for approvals according to the business requirements. It has emerged as a key reform initiative to streamline business approvals by reducing approval timelines, securing document repository and fast query management through a single digital gateway. It integrates approval processes across 32 Central Departments and 32 State Governments, and has access over 698 central and 7435 state approvals. NSWS has granted over 8,29,750 approvals, since its launch.
The government has also launched other single-window digital platforms which increase transparency, reduces cost and simplify compliance.
As part of the Reducing Compliance Burden exercise, Central Ministries and States & UTs undertook extensive self-identification of burdensome compliances based on data uploaded on the Regulatory Compliance Portal. As of November 2025, more than 47,000 compliances have been reduced, including 16,108 compliances simplified, 22,287 digitised, 4,458 decriminalised, and 4,270 redundant compliances removed.
Several States and Union Territories have undertaken innovative reforms that go beyond the common reform templates, tailored to their specific administrative, economic, and spatial contexts.
Since 2015, the Government has been implementing the Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) to promote transparency, simplify regulatory procedures, and enhance service delivery across States and Union Territories. 7 editions of BRAP have been completed till date, and the eighth edition, BRAP 2026, was formally rolled out on 11 November 2025. To further deepen reforms at the grassroots, DPIIT has also launched the District Business Reform Action Plan (D-BRAP) to strengthen Ease of Doing Business at the District Level. The Economic Survey 2025-26 highlights some of the state specific achievements under BRAP.
Structural Reforms Supporting Ease of Doing Business
Structural reforms supporting EoDB have focused on regulatory simplification, institutional consolidation, and technology-led governance across financial markets, taxation, labour, banking, and environmental regulation. Recent measures by sectoral regulators, coupled with reforms in insurance, securities, GST, labour codes, and public sector banking, aim to reduce compliance burden, enhance transparency, and improve access to finance. Together, these reforms strengthen regulatory certainty, promote competition, and support a more efficient and resilient business ecosystem.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has undertaken a comprehensive reorganisation of its regulatory framework by consolidating over 9,000 circulars and guidelines into 238 function-specific Master Directions for different categories of regulated entities. As part of this initiative, 9,446 circulars are being repealed, with relevant 3,809 circulars subsumed into Master Circulars and 5,673 have been deemed obsolete. The initiative enhances regulatory clarity, reduces compliance burden, and supports the objective of improving EoDB.
The Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025 has amended various provisions of the Insurance Act, 1938, the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956, and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999, with a view to enhance citizens protection, deepen insurance penetration, accelerate growth and development of the insurance sector and to enhance the EoDB. One of the key features of the provisions is to allow up to 100% Foreign Direct Investment in Insurance Companies, opening doors to more foreign players to India. It promotes EoDB by:
The Indian Insurance Companies (Foreign Investment) Amendment Rules, 2025 were also notified on 30 December 2025 to ease business by rationalising conditions for insurers and intermediaries.
Public Sector Banks launched the CAM in 2025, based on digital footprints for MSMEs. Between 1 April and 31 December 2025, over 3.96 lakh MSME loan applications amounting to more than Rs.52,300 crore were sanctioned under digital credit underwriting programmes. The model improves EoDB by
The consolidation of 29 Central labour laws into four Labour Codes has significantly enhanced Ease of Doing Business by simplifying compliance, reducing approval timelines, and providing greater operational flexibility, particularly for MSMEs.
GST reforms introduced in September 2025 strengthen Ease of Doing Business by simplifying tax slabs, reducing rates across key sectors, thus lowering tax incidence and improving price competitiveness. The move towards a simplified two-rate structure lowers compliance and transaction costs, while rate rationalisation improves affordability and supports entrepreneurship.
The impact is reflected in the expansion of the tax base, with registered taxpayers increasing from about 60 lakhs in 2017 to over 1.5 crore in November 2025, indicating deeper formalisation. Further, correction of inverted duty structures in labour-intensive and agri-input sectors such as textiles and fertilisers has reduced costs and working capital pressures, easing business operations.
Conclusion
India's Ease of Doing Business framework continues to evolve through a combination of regulatory simplification, digitalisation, and trust-based governance. The Union Budget 2026-27 proposals, alongside ongoing reforms across taxation, labour, finance, and regulation, signal a sustained commitment to reducing compliance burden and improving predictability for businesses. Strong trends in investment inflows, enterprise growth, and formalisation reflect the broader reform momentum built over the past decade. Together, these initiatives strengthen India's competitiveness and promote growth.
References
Ministry of Finance
https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/doc/echapter.pdf
https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/doc/budget_speech.pdf
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID2206011®3&lang1
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID2216047®6&lang1
https://incometaxindia.gov.in/tutorials/10.mat-and-amt.pdf
Ministry of Commerce & Industry
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID2201280®3&lang2
https://www.nsws.gov.in/
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID2204665®1&lang1
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID2188992®3&lang2#:~:textBRAP%202024%20covered%20434%20reform,across%2034%20States%20and%20UTs.
Sansad
https://sansad.in/getFile/annex/270/AU381_Ff7hlQ.pdf?sourcepqars
https://sansad.in/getFile/loksabhaquestions/annex/185/AU2676_JjlKis.pdf?sourcepqals&utm_
PIB Headquarters
https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2025/dec/doc2025125719501.pdf
Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs
https://www.aeoindia.gov.in/SourceCode/Website/pdf/faq_on_deferred_duty_payment.pdf
Click here to see pdf
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
