Ease of doing business: Andhra tops list, Gujarat, Maharashtra trail behind

The rankings, jointly prepared by the World Bank and DIPP, evaluate states on a 340-point Business Reform Action Plan for the period between July 2016 and July 2018.

Andhra Pradesh ranked first in the DIPP (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion) and World Bank's jointly-released ease of doing business index for states, leaving behind industry-focussed states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. The state reportedly has about 56,000 private active non-government companies.

Though West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee is trying her best to woo big industrialists to set up shop, the state has seen very little movement in this regard. The state has achieved success with micro, small and medium enterprises. It boasts the largest number of such enterprises in the country, according to reports.

A surprising outlier of the survey was that Maharashtra, which has Mumbai - India's second-largest city and its financial nerve-centre - was ranked 13th.

Southern state Tamil Nadu got the 15th rank with a combined score of 90.68%. Recently the state saw the closure of Sterlite's copper smelter in Tuticorin on pollution-related issues.

Delhi's score fell to 31.60%, from 47% in 2016, and it stood in the 23rd spot, behind Jammu and Kashmir, which bagged the 22nd spot with a 33.05% score.

Last year, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh had jointly ranked in the No. 1 position in terms of Ease of Doing Business, ahead of Gujarat - Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state - which was number one in 2015.

In the latest Ease of Doing Business report of the World Bank, India's rank improved by a number of notches to 100 among 190 nations. The government aims to be among top 50 countries in the overall ease of doing business rankings, released by the World Bank.