ComMin launches tools to rank states, UTs on startup ecosystem

The commerce and industry ministry today launched tools to rank states and union territories on the basis of measures taken by them to promote budding entrepreneurs.
The tools, the state and union territory startup ranking framework, compendium of good practices for promoting startups in India and the Startup India Kit, would help promote the start-up drive, the ministry said.
"These will act as catalysts to help the Startup India initiative to drive India's economic growth," the ministry said in a statement.
It said that the key objective of the startup states and UTs ranking framework is to encourage states to take proactive steps towards strengthening the startup ecosystems at the local level.

"The ranking framework will measure the impact of each step initiated at the local level for building a strong Startup ecosystem," it said in a statement.
It will also enable continuous learning through the dissemination of good practices, the ministry added.

According to the statement, India is home to about 20,000 startups, with about 1,400 beginning operations every year.
The ranking, it said, is based on the feedback collected from startup ecosystem stakeholders, which include startups, mentors, investors, accelerators, incubators and the government.
Areas which should be given greater thrust like seed funding support, women entrepreneurship are given more score, the ministry added.

The parameters of this feedback focuses on all the actions and initiatives undertaken by states on or before March 2018.
These include having a startup cell or helpline and a mobile or web portal for queries, the size of the startup mentor network created by the state government and the number of key incubators for incubation support.
Further it said that the compendium of good practises for promoting startups focuses on enriching the startup ecosystem through ethical behaviours and is currently followed by 18 states and UTs.
"It covers 95 good practises across 7 areas of intervention. These are distilled into 38 action points includingincubation support, seed funding, angel & venture Funding, startup policy & Implementation, simplified regulations, easing public procurement," it said.

Similarly, the startup kit is primarily a one-stop guide on all Startup India offerings.
It offers information, advice and assistance through website links, statistics, tools, templates, events, competitions and a glossary on startup terms.