Gujarat & Karnataka emerge as Best Performers in providing strong ecosystem to startups

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday released the results of the third edition of Ranking of States' Exercise 2021 on Support to Startup Ecosystems in New Delhi. This was the third edition of the rankings.

In the third edition of Ranking of States' Exercise 2021, Gujarat and Karnataka emerged as the Best Performers in a category of States which included NCT of Delhi. Meghalaya won the top honour among UTs and North-eastern (NE) States.

For the purposes of the Ranking, States and Union Territories are classified into 5 Categories, viz. Best Performers, Top Performers, Leaders, Aspiring Leaders and Emerging Start-up Ecosystems.

While Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa and Telangana got the Top Performers award among states, Jammu & Kashmir emerged as the Top Performer among UTs and NE states. Winners of other categories:

• Winners in the Leaders category among states: Assam, Punjab, Tamil Nādu, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
• Leaders honour among the UTs and NE states: Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa.
• Aspiring Leaders among the States: Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
• Aspiring Leaders from the UTs and NE states: Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Puducherry and Tripura.
• Emerging Start-up Ecosystem: Andhra Pradesh and Bihar from States category and Mizoram and Ladakh from the UTs/NE States were clubbed under the Emerging Start-up Ecosystem.

Mr Goyal said that India has become the third largest startup ecosystem in the world within a span of six years. He said, the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has acted as a catalyst for startups rather than a controller.

On this occasion, Mr. Goyal said, initiatives like Fund of Funds, Seed Fund Scheme, Income Tax exemption for three years and resolving the issue of Angel Tax have helped the startups ecosystem in the country. He stressed that India should be the number one ecosystem for startups in the world. He said, there are over 71,000 startups from over 640 districts and concrete efforts can led to registration of more startups.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has been conducting the States' Start-up Ranking Exercise since 2018 to facilitate the ease of building a start-up and doing business across the country. The exercise has grown in its impact over the last three editions, with 31 participating states and union territories in this edition, the highest till date. The State Start-up Ranking Exercise aims to support states and union territories in developing their start-up ecosystem and learn from the best practices in each state and union territory.

The consideration period for the third edition of the States Startup Ranking Exercise was 1st October 2019 to 31st July 2021. The documentary evidence submitted was evaluated over a 6-month duration. The evaluation committee across 14 meetings assessed each document and was composed of representatives from 19 government departments and 29 non-government startup ecosystem stakeholders, for fair and transparent evaluation.