Telangana slips in startup ranking from ‘Leader’ to ‘Aspiring Leader’

HYDERABAD: Despite the Telangana government’s interest towards startups and innovation, it lags behind many other States. As shown in the States’ Startup Ranking 2019, which was released on Friday, the State has been adjudged as an ‘Aspiring Leader’. This is in fact a step down from the 2018 ranking where the government was adjudged a ‘Leader’.

To put things into perspective, in the States’ Startup Ranking hierarchy, the ‘Best Performer’ category is reserved for the State who gets the top marks in all categories  - in this case Gujarat. Aspiring Leaders come fourth in the five-step ranking for securing results that were ‘more than 10 percentile and less than 30 percentile’. Apart from this, Telangana was also adjudged a ‘Leader’ under the ‘Procurement’ category.
The reasons behind the performance is manifold. According to the Telangana State Report document for the States’ Startup Ranking, the government scored 15 per cent in institutional support, 37 per cent in simplifying regulations and 34 per cent in easing public procurement.

It scored zero per cent in incubation support, seed funding support and venture funding support, and a mere 1 per cent in awareness and outreach.The report says, “The range of impact generated through ‘Institutional Support’, ‘Easing Public Procurement’ as well as ‘Simplifying Regulations’ require enhancement. Although significant efforts have been made to enhance the startup ecosystem, the initiatives undertaken towards ‘Seed Funding Support, ‘Venture Funding Support’ and ‘Incubation Support’ call for improvements since results have been negligible in these pillars.”

The Centre, in this regard. asked the State to improve its startup policy by including the process of registration of startups so that it evokes and ensures transparency for interested startups. In the incubation area where State’s flagship T-Hub finds a mention of appreciation in the report, the Centre recommended upgradation of such incubators and setting up new facilities.  “The State has only one seat allotted for incubation. Therefore it may explore the opportunity and back it up by a certificate from incubators sepcifying the number of seats allocated to status,” the report said.