Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce, Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, and Textiles, released the results of the third edition of the Ranking of States on Support to Startup Ecosystems on 4 July 2022. States and Union Territories are ranked based on 5 categories, namely: Best Performers, Top Performers, Leaders, Aspiring Leaders and Emerging Start-up Ecosystems.
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. 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.
Assam, Punjab, Tamil Nādu, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh were adjudged the winners in the Leaders category among states; Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa bagged the Leaders honour among the UTs and NE states. Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were declared as Aspiring Leaders among the States. Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Puducherry and Tripura were the Aspiring Leaders from the UTs and NE states. Andhra Pradesh and Bihar from States category and Mizoram and Ladakh from the UTs/NE States were clubbed under the Emerging Start-up Ecosystem.
Speaking after declaring the awards, Shri Piyush Goyal said that ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) had the power to spawn thousands of start-ups. “The huge success that UPI has been in India, which has democratised the payment system in India. In the next 5 year, we will have ONDC democratize the 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 one trillion sizes, you will have a thousand companies each of a billion dollar. That is what ONDC has the power to do,” the Minister said.
Emphasizing that Indian ecosystem could become the best in the work, Shri Goyal suggested that States could align with neighbouring ones so as to learn from each other. He also asked the department to get more start-ups on the Government E-Marketplace (GeM), saying that now even the Services had been brought under GeM.
Shri Goyal suggested that there was a need to focus on developing start-up ecosystem in districts with help of all the start-up related schemes by the central and the state government. He emphasized upon the need to onboard and register more start-ups. He added that there was a great opportunity to democratize the start-up ecosystem in the same way as the Indian Premier League (IPL) democratized the cricket arena.
The minister appreciated the new mentorship program and said that it would help those with ideas to get support and help them fructify their ideas.
Shri Anurag Jain, Secretary, 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 added.
The call for mentors for MAARG portal was also announced during the event. The portal is developed with the idea to develop a tool for start-ups in India that can be accessed from every corner of the country to request and connect with a mentor.
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