New Delhi: With the aim to foster competitiveness and to propel the States and Union Territories to work proactively towards promotion of their Startup eco-systems, the States Startup Ranking Framework was launched by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) on 6th February 2018. This was also targeted at facilitating States/UTs to identify, learn and replicate good practices from each other and for bringing to fore, their own progress in the regard.
As a run-up to this, DIPP actively engaged with State and UT Governments over the past several weeks to help them prepare and participate in the States Startup Ranking exercise. Two rounds of video conferences were organised by DIPP with all the States and UTs in the month of March and April 2018. A dedicated team from DIPP also visited all States and UTs to conduct ranking awareness and capacity building workshop. In order to provide exposure to State/UT officials about the process of developing Startup ecosystem in their respective regions, 3 knowledge exchange workshops were conducted at leading incubators in the country. The workshops were organised at T-Hub, Hyderabad on 9th April, 2018, iCreate, Ahmedabad on 11th April, 2018 and Sunrise Incubation Tower, Vishakhapatnam on 16th April, 2018. There was a lot of enthusiasm shown by the States and Union Territories in these workshops which were attended in large numbers.
States and UTs have participated enthusiastically in this first ever State Startup Ranking exercise. A total of 30 States and UTs have participated in this exercise whose last date for submission of documents was 30thApril. It is encouraging to note enthusiastic participation from majority of north-eastern and hill States as well, where the Startup ecosystem is still nascent.
The participating States and UTs shall now be evaluated on a score of 100, against 38 action points categorized into 7 areas of intervention such as Startup Policy and implementation, Incubation support, Seed Funding, Angel and Venture Funding, Simplification of Regulations, Easing Public Procurement and Awareness & Outreach. In order to evaluate States/UTs in a balanced and transparent manner, the assessment will be based on the aggregate score of the documentary proofs substantiating the implementation of action points by the State/ UT Government and also feedback from Startup ecosystem beneficiaries/components (to be picked up randomly from the list of beneficiaries/components that the state itself provides). DIPP has appointed seven dedicated evaluation committees involving members from all relevant departments and reputed players in the ecosystem, for evaluating States’ responses in each area of intervention. The performance of the States will be dynamically presented on the State Startup Ranking dashboard hosted on www.startupindia.gov.in. The overall exercise is expected to be complete with announcement in ranking in June, 2018.
The launch of the ranking framework has galvanized the States into action, thereby giving impetus to the Startup movement across the country. The impact created by this exercise is highlighted below through some of the encouraging responses as submitted by State Governments, which are currently under evaluation:
- Announcement of Startup Policy
- Introduction of specific incentives in State Startup policy for women lead Startups
- Constitution of State Startup nodal team
- Provision of financial support to State Incubators
- Design of guidelines for Seed Funding for Startups
- Launch of State chapters of angel networks
- Hosting discussions/workshops to identify Startups in disruptive technologies
- Conducting State Startup Yatras – a series of boot camps in colleges/ universities to generate ideas
