India Deepens Ease-of-Business Reforms as Gujarat Emerges as a Leading State

India’s decade-long effort to simplify regulation and make it easier for companies to invest and operate is moving into a deeper phase, with reforms increasingly extending from central ministries and state capitals to individual districts. At the same time, Gujarat has emerged as one of the prominent states implementing business-friendly reforms and is positioning this regulatory transformation alongside an ambitious industrial-development strategy.

Speaking at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2027 Curtain Raiser in New Delhi on 31 August 2026, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade Secretary Amardeep Singh Bhatia said state governments had undertaken more than 40,000 reforms during the preceding decade, describing Gujarat as one of the front-runners in carrying them out. He emphasised that improving the business environment has increasingly become a cooperative exercise involving both the Centre and the states.

The scale of the wider regulatory transformation is also visible in official government data. DPIIT’s 2025-26 annual report records that more than 9,200 individual reforms have been implemented through seven editions of the Business Reform Action Plan, or BRAP. Separately, under the broader Reducing Compliance Burden initiative, more than 47,000 compliances across Central and State legislation have been simplified, digitised, decriminalised or removed.

From State Rankings to Continuous Regulatory Reform

The Business Reform Action Plan has been one of the principal mechanisms through which the Centre has encouraged states and Union Territories to simplify approvals and modernise regulatory administration. Introduced in 2015, BRAP covers areas that directly affect enterprises, including registrations, inspections, land administration, construction permissions, utility connections, environmental approvals and digital delivery of government services.

The programme has gradually evolved from a checklist-driven assessment into a more extensive reform framework. BRAP 2024 contained 491 reform points, including 434 directed at states and Union Territories. DPIIT says more than 70 per cent of these reform points were implemented by more than 30 states and Union Territories. The assessment also incorporated direct feedback from entrepreneurs rather than relying only on government declarations of implementation.

Digitalisation has been central to this change. More than 30 states and Union Territories now operate single-window systems, while most have established connections with the National Single Window System, allowing investors to identify and obtain a growing range of approvals through digital channels.

At the same time, reforms are increasingly moving beyond simply putting existing paperwork online. The focus is shifting towards eliminating unnecessary approvals, reducing the frequency of inspections, removing redundant requirements and replacing criminal penalties for minor technical violations with more proportionate administrative mechanisms.

More Than 47,000 Compliances Reduced

The scale of this regulatory clean-up extends beyond BRAP itself. Official government figures show that more than 47,000 compliances have been reduced under the national Reducing Compliance Burden exercise.

These include more than 16,000 compliances that were simplified, over 22,000 that were digitised, thousands of provisions that were decriminalised and more than 4,000 redundant requirements that were eliminated. The reforms cover hundreds of laws administered across the Centre and states and are intended to reduce recurring administrative costs for businesses.

India has also expanded its move towards what the government describes as trust-based regulation through the Jan Vishwas framework. The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2026 decriminalised 717 provisions and amended 784 provisions spread across 79 Central Acts administered by 23 ministries. The objective is to reserve criminal prosecution for more serious offences while dealing with minor procedural failures through proportionate penalties and corrective mechanisms.

Taken together, these changes represent an important shift in the philosophy of business regulation. Ease of doing business is increasingly being treated not simply as faster approval of new investments but as reducing regulatory friction throughout the entire lifecycle of an enterprise.

Reforms Now Moving to the District Level

The next stage is taking regulatory reform below the state level through the District Business Reform Action Plan, or D-BRAP.

DPIIT launched the initiative after recognising that many approvals and government interactions faced by businesses are actually administered by district authorities. A state may have sophisticated online investment systems, but companies can still encounter delays in local licences, land processes, utility connections and inspections.

D-BRAP therefore focuses on five broad areas: time-bound digital delivery of services, transparent and risk-based inspections, strengthening District Industries Centres as investor-facilitation hubs, creating district-level startup support and ensuring that suitable industrial land and infrastructure are clearly identified.

The programme effectively attempts to take the ease-of-business agenda from state secretariats to the locations where factories, warehouses and enterprises are actually established.

Industrial Infrastructure Expands Alongside Regulatory Reform

Simpler regulation alone cannot create a globally competitive manufacturing economy without adequate industrial infrastructure. The government has therefore been linking regulatory reforms with industrial corridors, logistics networks, plug-and-play manufacturing zones and multimodal connectivity.

Under the National Industrial Corridor Development Programme, India currently has 20 approved industrial projects across 13 states and seven industrial corridors. Four industrial smart cities — Dholera, Shendra-Bidkin, Greater Noida and Vikram Udyogpuri — have already entered the production stage.

DPIIT has sanctioned more than ₹16,172 crore for industrial-corridor development, while the government is simultaneously advancing the BHAVYA — Bharat Audyogik Vikas Yojna programme. Approved in March 2026 with an allocation of ₹33,660 crore, BHAVYA envisages the development of 100 investment-ready plug-and-play industrial parks with infrastructure, utilities, connectivity and streamlined approval mechanisms already in place.

This distinction is important. The National Industrial Corridor Development Programme currently contains 20 approved industrial nodes or projects, while the newer BHAVYA programme proposes another 100 plug-and-play industrial parks. Together, they indicate that ease-of-business policy is becoming increasingly connected with physical readiness for manufacturing.

PLI Schemes Build Scale in 14 Manufacturing Sectors

Industrial policy is also being used to encourage companies to manufacture at greater scale. The Production Linked Incentive programme currently covers 14 strategic sectors, ranging from electronics, automobiles and pharmaceuticals to telecom equipment, speciality steel, batteries, solar modules and drones.

Official figures released in July show that PLI-supported sectors had attracted cumulative investment of more than ₹2.40 lakh crore by March 2026. The programme is designed not simply to increase domestic manufacturing output but also to deepen local supply chains, generate exports and encourage companies to achieve the production scale needed to compete internationally.

The combination of PLI incentives, regulatory simplification, industrial corridors and improved logistics represents a broader effort to address several structural constraints simultaneously rather than relying on a single policy instrument.

Innovation and Deep Technology Enter the Industrial Strategy

The next phase of manufacturing competitiveness will depend increasingly on domestic research and intellectual property rather than only assembling products using imported technology. India has consequently begun creating larger financing mechanisms for high-risk industrial research.

The Research, Development and Innovation Scheme has a planned corpus of ₹1 lakh crore over six years and is intended to encourage private-sector investment in high-impact research. Priority areas include quantum technologies, robotics, space, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, advanced medical technologies, energy transition and other strategically important technologies where greater domestic capability is considered necessary.

The government has also approved Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0, with a corpus of ₹10,000 crore, aimed particularly at deep technology, technology-driven manufacturing and early-growth companies.

The emergence of these financing mechanisms indicates that the ease-of-business agenda is broadening beyond reducing paperwork. The longer-term objective is to create an environment in which companies can obtain approvals more easily, access industrial infrastructure, invest in research, expand domestic supply chains and eventually compete in international markets.

Gujarat Positions Itself for a $3.5-Trillion Economy

Against this national backdrop, Gujarat is attempting to build on its long-established manufacturing and investment base. The state has adopted the Viksit Gujarat@2047 vision with the objective of developing a $3.5-trillion economy by 2047. The target is also reflected in Gujarat’s long-term economic planning and its new industrial-policy framework.

The Viksit Gujarat Industrial Policy 2026 places particular emphasis on advanced manufacturing, innovation, research, exports, regional economic development and attracting technology-intensive industries. Gujarat is increasingly targeting sectors such as semiconductors, electronics, renewable energy, green hydrogen, data centres, electric mobility, pharmaceuticals, aerospace and advanced engineering.

Dholera is particularly significant in this strategy. As one of the industrial smart cities already moving into the production stage under the national industrial-corridor programme, it is being developed alongside major semiconductor, renewable-energy and infrastructure investments.

The state is also seeking to spread industrial development beyond its traditionally dominant manufacturing centres by preparing regional economic master plans and developing new industrial clusters and infrastructure across different parts of Gujarat.

From Ease of Doing Business to Competitiveness

India’s regulatory reform programme has therefore moved well beyond the earlier emphasis on rankings between states. The emerging framework combines regulatory simplification, decriminalisation, digital approvals, district-level reform, industrial infrastructure, production incentives, research financing and startup capital.

The objective is increasingly to reduce both the time required to establish a business and the recurring cost of operating it after investment has taken place.

The distinction between the various reform numbers is important. The more than 40,000 reforms cited by the DPIIT Secretary refer to the wider decade-long reform effort by states, while DPIIT formally records more than 9,200 reforms through seven editions of BRAP. Separately, more than 47,000 regulatory compliances have been reduced under the national compliance-reduction programme. Together, these figures illustrate the multiple layers through which India has been attempting to reshape its business-regulation environment.

Gujarat’s emergence as a leading participant in these reforms is therefore part of a much larger transformation. As India attempts to expand manufacturing, attract global investment and build deeper domestic technology capabilities, the next measure of success will not simply be the number of regulations removed. It will be whether these reforms translate into faster investment decisions, lower operating costs, greater innovation, stronger domestic value chains and a sustained increase in globally competitive Indian enterprises.

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