City of paradoxes!

BHUBANESWAR: Despite the fact that more number of investment agreements have been signed in Bhubaneswar than any other Indian city in recent years, the World Bank has identified it as a place where one takes the longest time to start a business.
The latest World Bank report on `Doing Business in South Asia 2007' places Bhubaneswar along with national capital New Delhi, where starting a business takes as long as 52 days. Within the country, the shortest time to start a business is 35 days in Mumbai.
In 12 major cities, which have been analysed in the study, Kolkata follows both Bhubaneswar and New Delhi where it takes about 51 days to start a business. The other cities covered in the study are Chennai, Patna, Jaipur, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Bangalore and Chandigarh.
Bhubaneswar has witnessed signing of a plethora of memoranda of understanding (MoU) involving projected investment of Rs 3,00,000 crores between the Orissa Government and private companies since the beginning of this millennium.
Citing example of delay in obtaining Permanent Account Number (PAN) and Tax deduction Account Number (TAN), the report says, "In Mumbai it takes 8 days to complete both procedures, where in New Delhi and Bhubaneswar it takes between 15 and 20 days. "
To register a property, Bhubaneswar is the costliest place as 14 per cent of property cost goes on account of stamp duty and transfer charges. The city has been clubbed with New Delhi, Patna, Ranchi and even Kolkata where most paperwork (11 documents) is needed for import and export.
Benchmark practices
Bhubaneswar, however, is the cheapest place to start a business. While it costs 41.3 per cent of income per capita in the city, Mumbai is spotted as the costliest place with 74 per cent of income per capita requiring for the purpose. Bhubaneswar is ranked five among all 12 cities where doing business has become easier.
The State capital, however, has been chosen for imbibing benchmark practices on licensing, contract enforcement and taxes.
Stating that obtaining the necessary licence to construct a warehouse remains extremely costly in India, at 606 per cent of income per capita, the World Bank report says, "it takes 159 days to fulfil all regulatory requirements to build a warehouse in Bhubaneswar— the shortest within the country. At the other end of the spectrum it takes 522 days in Ranchi." The number of procedures for starting business is lowest in Bhubaneswar (16) and highest in Patna and Ranchi (25), it adds.
Similarly, commercial dispute resolution (enforce a contract) takes shortest time in Bhubaneswar (610 days), while it is 1420 days in Mumbai.
Doing Business in South Asia 2007 is the third report in a series of South Asia regional reports based on the methodology of the annual global Doing Business report prepared by International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private arm of the World Bank.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/02/17/stories/2007021710320300.htm