The Results of the second edition of Ranking of States on Support to Startup Ecosystems will be released by Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice Shri Ravishankar Prasad on 11^th September, 2020 at 3 PM, at the National Media Centre, New Delhi, through a virtual felicitation ceremony, in the presence of Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry Shri Piyush Goyal,  Minister of State for Commerce & Industry. Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Civil Aviation, Housing and Urban Affairs Shri Hardeep Singh Puri and Minister of State for Commerce & Industry Shri Som Parkash will also grace the occasion. Results of the ranking exercise will be via video conferencing with Ministers and senior government officials joining from all participating States and UTs.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) conducted the second edition of the States’ Startup Ranking Exercise with the key objective to foster competitiveness and propel States and Union Territories to work proactively towards uplifting the startup ecosystem.  It has been envisioned as a capacity development exercise to encourage mutual learning among all states and to provide support in policy formulation and implementation.

The States’ Startup Ranking Framework 2019 has 7 broad reform areas consisting of 30 action points ranging from Institutional Support, Easing Compliances, Relaxation in Public Procurement norms, Incubation support, Seed Funding Support, Venture Funding Support, and Awareness & Outreach. To establish uniformity and ensure standardization in the ranking process, States and UTs have been divided into two groups. While UTs except Delhi, and all States in North East India, except Assam are in one group, all other states are placed in the other group.  

A total of 22 States and 3 Union Territories participated in the exercise. An Evaluation Committee comprising of independent experts from the Startup ecosystem, carried out a detailed assessment of responses across various parameters. Many parameters involved getting feedback from beneficiaries which was gathered through more than 60,000 calls made in 11 different languages to empathetically connect with beneficiaries to ascertain the real pulse at the implementation levels.

States' Startup Ranking Framework drives competitive policy reforms and capacity building among states to strengthen startup ecosystems. The States' Startup Ranking Framework functions as a capacity building mechanism that sets seven reform areas and thirty action points-covering Institutional Support, Easing Compliances, Public Procurement relaxations, Incubation, Seed and Venture funding, and Awareness & Outreach-and standardizes State and UT groupings for uniform evaluation. An expert Evaluation Committee assesses submissions and corroborates implementation through extensive multilingual beneficiary feedback gathered to inform policy formulation and encourage mutual learning among jurisdictions.