India Releases National Report on the States’ Startup Ranking 2018

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in India has conducted the first ever States’ Startup Ranking exercise with the objective to encourage States and Union Territories to take proactive steps towards strengthening the startup ecosystem.

The methodology has been aimed at creating a healthy competition among States to help them learn, share, and adopt good practices. According to DIPP, awareness workshops, knowledge workshops, mentoring, international visits, and video conferencing have helped many States initiate effective measures to support Startups.

DIPP says it consulted all stakeholders of the Startup ecosystem and came up with 7 key reform areas as the basis of the States’ Startup Ranking Framework. An online portal was launched, which was instrumental in enabling States seamlessly submit their initiatives across these reform areas.

A total of 27 States and 3 Union Territories participated in the exercise to compile States’ Startup Ranking 2018. Evaluation Committee comprising independent experts from the Startup ecosystem assessed the responses across various parameters.

Many parameters involved getting feedback from beneficiaries. DIPP claims that more than 40,000 calls were made in 9 different languages to get feedback from beneficiaries. Results of the Ranking exercise were announced on 20th December 2018 at a special event organized at Pravasi Bhartiya Kendra in New Delhi.

States have been identified as leaders across various categories such as Startup Policy Leaders, Incubation Hubs, Seeding Innovation, Scaling Innovation, Regulatory Change Champions, Procurement Leaders, Communication Champions, North-Eastern Leader, and Hill State Leader.

A comprehensive National Report on the States’ Startup Ranking 2018 was also launched at the event, detailing the journey of Startup India, role of Central and State Governments, conceptualization of the ranking framework, evaluation methodology, capacity development of States, assessment process, feedback from stakeholders, and the results of the exercise along with its impact on the States and the future road map.

Photo: DIPP