Thiruvananthapuram: An ‘enterprise survey’ conducted by NITI Aayog has revealed that Kerala is one of the worst performing states in terms of ‘ease of doing business’ in the country.

The state fares poorly in a spate of parameters like time taken for approvals, clearances and sorting out legal hassles. In all of these parameters, the state fares way below the national average.

The Niti Aayog study, ‘Ease of Doing Business: An Enterprise Survey’, notes that the average time taken to set up a business in India is 118 days.

On average, it may take, 63 days to set up a business in Tamil Nadu, 67 in Andhra Pradesh, and 214 in Kerala. Only Assam fares worse (248 days).

For a state that depends on real estate to drive consumption, the average number of days for getting all construction-related approvals should be considered alarming. The national average is 112 days. In Kerala, it would taken 134 days and Karnataka being the worse with 140 days.

The shortest time taken is in Himachal Pradesh within 8 days.

The time taken to secure environment-related approvals and renewals ranges, respectively, from zero to a little over 100 days and zero to 90 days in the country.

It takes on average 91 days for getting environmental clearances and on average 71 days for renewing these clearances.

In Chhattisgarh it just took 25 days for firms to get environmental approvals and for Kerala it was 121.

The study also hints at what pushes a state to the ‘high-growth’ trajectory.  “While it is difficult to establish a causal link between state specific policies and growth, high-growth enterprises have traditionally gained from favourable local policy environment,” it stated.