Business

Prime Minister Launches Ease of Doing Business Grand Challenge

The Prime Minister of India launched a Grand Challenge on resolving seven identified Ease of Doing Business problems with the use of cutting edge technologies. The objective of this challenge is to tap the potential of young Indians, startups and other private enterprises to provide solutions to complex problems using current technology. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a programme organised at his residence, interacted with select CEOs from Indian and foreign companies. He apprised CEOs of the efforts being made by the government to ensure that India consistently improves its business environment. And reiterated his resolve to make India one of the easiest places to conduct business in the world. He congratulated all government officials from the reforming ministries and departments as well as states and municipal corporations for their achievements in the last four years and exhorted them to work towards reforms with greater zeal & energy. EODB Grand Challenge: The grand challenge seeks to invite innovative ideas from individuals, startups or other enterprises to implement artificial intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain and other cutting-edge technologies for re-engineering related government processes to eliminate physical interface, improve service delivery, enhance transparency and reduce cost and time. Key Highlights

The EODB grand challenge is open to all young Indians, start-ups & private enterprises. The main purpose is to provide solutions to complex problems using current technology.
The platform for grand challenge will be the Start-up India portal.
The date for closing of applications is January 1, 2019 & the final results will be declared on February 1, 2019.
The top 3 teams for each problem statement would be awarded cash prizes worth Rs 1 lakh, Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh respectively.
The government would be working with all the winners for solution development and implementation.

In the World Bank's Doing Business Report (DBR, 2019) released on 31st October 2018 India has recorded a jump of 23 positions against its rank of 100 in 2017 to be placed at 77th rank among 190 countries assessed by the World Bank. As a result of continued efforts by the government, India has improved its rank by 53 positions in the last two years and 65 positions in the last four years [2014-18].