The small steps that will take Chennai a long

CHENNAI: Chennai might be ranked No. 15 in the Doing Business study but how would the city's ranking change if it reformed?
If the government officials pull up their socks and reduce the time required for procedures associated with setting up a business, reduce steps and lower taxes, Chennai could zoom up the ranking scale and become numero uno in no time.Here is blow-by-blow account on Chennai becoming the best place to do business.
The study found that in Chennai, starting a business takes 34 days. If the same can be brought down to 30 days (like Mumbai), Chennai will move up to 14th spot immediately.
Cutting down on the number of procedures for setting up a business from 13 to 11, will move Chennai to 11th rank. Cities like Patna and New Delhi require businesses to complete just 11 procedures.
The businesses surveyed said they spend 143 days to deal with construction permits in Chennai. If Chennai does a Hyderabad (which takes 80 days), Chennai's overall rank improves to 9.
Registration of property is also cumbersome as it turns out that it takes 48 days to complete that key process, double the time required to do it in Jaipur (24 days). A reduction of 24 days will mean Chennai will become the 8th most easy destination to do business.
While collecting taxes is a problem, the IFC study points out that paying taxes required 292 hours in numma Chennai, which is a good 59 hours more than category best Jaipur (233 hours). If tax officials are able to match Jaipur's time, Chennai will break into the overall top 3 destinations.
A mere 300 basis point (1 basis point = 0.01) drop in tax-rates to 67% will make Chennai number 2 as it will attract more companies to set up shop.
Other measures such as reducing time for export (by 8 days) and import (by 1 day) as well as the time required to enforce contracts from 877 days to 600 days, will push Chennai to number 1 spot.
To ensure that Ludhiana does not challenge its rank and Chennai cements its place as the undisputed leader in doing business, government officials should try to minimise the time needed to close a business to 7 years, just 6 months less than the existing 7.5 years.
This exercise assumes that other cities don't reform.