Start-up ecosystem ranking 2021 – Gujarat, Karnataka at top; Kerala, Odisha surprise   

Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, and Textiles, declared the results of the third edition of Ranking of States on Support to Start-up Ecosystems.

States and Union Territories were classified into five categories — best performers, top performers, leaders, aspiring leaders, and emerging start-up ecosystems.

Among states, Gujarat and Karnataka (innovative leader too) were the best performers; Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha and Telangana were the top performers; Assam, Punjab, Tamil Nādu, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh were the leaders; Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were the aspiring leaders; while Andhra Pradesh and Bihar were under the emerging start-up ecosystem.

Among Union Territories and North-eastern states, Meghalaya was the best performers; J&K was the top performer; Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa were the leaders; Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Puducherry and Tripura were the aspiring leaders; while Mizoram and Ladakh were under the emerging start-up ecosystem.

The states and UTs have been placed alphabetically within each category.

The period of evaluation for the third edition was 1 October 2019 to 31 July 2021. States and UTs were evaluated on seven broad areas comprising 26 Action Points ranging from Institutional Support, Incubation support, Funding Support, etc.

The government said support is being extended by over 30 states and UTs through startup policies vs only four states prior to 2016.

Goyal highlighted the importance of ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce). He said, “The huge success that UPI has been in India, which has democratised the payment system in India. In the next five years, we will have ONDC democratize e-commerce across India. So much so that we will have a few thousand start-ups… may be more… and a few hundred unicorns. Rather than three companies being 100 billion or 1 trillion size, you will have a thousand companies each of a billion dollar.”

Anurag Jain, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), said that a number of initiatives of the government including JAM (Jandhan, Aadhar, Mobile), Digital India, Gatishakti, Ease of Doing Business were driving the start-up ecosystem. “If the Start-up system has to grow further, the biggest role has to be played by States. We can play a facilitative role,” he said.

MAARG (Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience and Growth) programme is aimed at improving the success rate of start-ups, a government statement said.

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MDDTimes Staff Writer

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