Jaipur: Labour, excise and administrative reforms depts have emerged as key bottlenecks in the state govt’s race to complete Centre-monitored business deregulation reforms by the June 30 deadline.The reforms fall under the Centre’s Compliance Reduction and Deregulation Phase-II programme, covering 28 priority areas to cut regulatory burden and improve ease of doing business.The latest review chaired by the chief secretary last week shows only eight reforms have been fully implemented, with several still underway and others delayed by pending approvals and policy decisions.While the labour dept, which is under the CM’s charge along with the depts of excise and administrative reforms, has issued notification of Shop and Establishment Rules regarding 24×7 operations, the issuing of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Rules, 2026, is still pending, delaying reforms relating to business licencing and shop registrations.While the proposal to delink hotel star classification from mandatory licences continues to await clearance through the excise-finance depts route, the administrative reforms dept is yet to operationalise the proposed auto-appeal mechanism under the right to services framework, said sources present at the review meeting.Besides these, reforms assigned to the medical and health dept, school education dept, and parts of the higher education dept are also pending. These include simplification of inter-state registration of medical professionals, removal of minimum land norms and infrastructure requirements for private schools, and relaxation of land requirements for private universities.The revenue dept is also awaiting approval for amendments to eliminate the requirement of Change in Land Use (CLU), one of the most significant reforms sought by industry, while some pending submissions on the central MIS portal continue to delay closure of milestones.The June 30 target assumes significance because Rajasthan committed to the Centre that all 28 priority reforms would be completed by then. Every state was allowed to set its own implementation timeline, and Rajasthan chose the end of June as its deadline. Officials said missing the target could affect the state’s overall performance assessment.In last year’s business reforms assessment, Rajasthan was ranked among the top achiever states.In contrast, Tripura has already completed implementation of all 28 priority areas, emerging as one of the first states to finish the entire reform package.The deregulation exercise traces its origin to the fifth conference of chief secretaries, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi in Dec last year, where states were asked to undertake a comprehensive review of outdated regulations affecting businesses. Following the conference, the Cabinet Secretariat identified 28 priority reforms for implementation across states.Progress is being monitored at the highest levels. The cabinet secretary reviews implementation every month through video conferences with chief secretaries, while the state chief secretary has been personally submitting the progress at the Cabinet Secretariat during his visits to New Delhi.With a fresh round of deregulation reforms expected to be rolled out from July, officials are pushing departments to clear the remaining files before the current phase concludes.Despite the delays, officials maintain that the overall performance has been encouraging, with the majority of departments having completed or substantially implemented their assigned reforms. The final few pending departments, however, are likely to determine whether Rajasthan meets its commitment to the Centre within the stipulated timeline.
