Gujarat and Karnataka are ranked as the 'best performers' in developing startup ecosystem for budding entrepreneurs, according to the ranking of states and Union territories by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh are also categorised as the best performers.

The ranking is a yearly exercise under DPIIT that evaluates all states and Union Territories on their efforts to build an ecosystem conducive to startup growth.

A total of 33 states and Union territories (UTs) participated in the exercise. They are ranked under five categories -- best performers, top performers, leaders, aspiring leaders and emerging startup ecosystems.

The states and Union Territories were broadly divided into two sections based on their population size --those having more than 1 crore and the ones with less than 1 crore.

Gujarat has been ranked as the best performer for the fourth time in a row. Karnataka has been ranked in this segment for the second consecutive year.

The exercise is aimed at supporting states and Union territories (UTs) in developing their startup ecosystem and learning from each other's best practices.

Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya, are categorised as the top performers.

Similarly eight states are categorised as 'leader' and that include Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, and Tripura.

States and UTs in the 'aspiring leaders' category include Bihar, Haryana, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Nagaland.

States under 'the emerging startup ecosystems' category include Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Ladakh, Mizoram, Puducherry, and Sikkim, according to the ranking.

They are all evaluated across 25 action points, ranging from institutional support, fostering innovation, access to market, incubation and funding support.

The states' startup ranking 2022 was released by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal here.

Goyal asked the officials to conduct an outreach exercise for the government recognised startups to see if they need any kind of hand holding; and do categorisation of all these entrepreneurs such as deeptech, agritech or fintech so that the department can do a focused interaction with them.

The startups should also take advantage of support measures being provided by the DPIIT for registration of intellectual property rights (IPRs) like patents and trademarks, he said adding people should come forward to do mentoring of these entities.

Further, the minister suggested the startups to look something "beyond the ILS (Instrument Landing System) and sort out the problem (of dense fog in winters) of the airline industry today", he said.

The ILS provides necessary guidance to pilots while they approach for landing at the runway.

Several flights are facing delays and cancellation due to the chilly weather conditions in the national capital.

He added that startups can look at working on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to promote 'Wed in India' to attract people from across the world.

Joint Secretary in the DPIIT Sanjiv said that about 1,800 recognised startups have been granted patents and the number of recognised startups has reached over 1.17 lakh.

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