By Abhishek Chandok and Shilpi Sharan
Niti Aayog and Institute of Competitiveness together released the third edition of India Innovation Index 2021 which is an assessment of innovation ecosystem of the country. The third edition has adopted the framework of Global Innovation Index and incorporated 30 more indicators across seven pillars which are human capital, investment, knowledge workers, business environment, safety and legal environment, knowledge output, and knowledge diffusion. This step has surely led to a better reflection of the country’s overall performance with respect to innovation.
| Year | Global Innovation Index Rank | Total Countries |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 60 | 127 |
| 2018 | 57 | 126 |
| 2019 | 52 | 129 |
| 2020 | 48 | 131 |
| 2021 | 46 | 132 |
India’s Rank on the Global Innovation Index
The onslaught of second wave of Covid-19 in the year 2021 affected the country in many areas of economy, labor, society, innovation, growth, healthcare, etc. While there was an economic slowdown due to lockdown in the country, there were opportunities that helped the economy in dipping further like the production and export of COVID vaccines and medicines, an increase in number of digital learners, digital payments, e-commerce shopping, etc. As a result, the country witnessed 44 start-ups that crossed USD 1 billion in valuation.
According to the India Innovation Index, Karnataka has scored the highest among all the States, Manipur has scored the highest among North-Eastern States and Chandigarh has scored highest among Union Territories. Karnataka, known as the IT hub of India, has been continuously making efforts and has been investing in its human capital and therefore its top-rank can be attributed to the ICT (information and communication technology) exports, GI (geographical indications) registrations, FDI investments gained and VC (venture capital) deals. Similarly, Meghalaya has invested to boost its IT sector and increase its ICT labs by 3%. As a result, it scored the highest in the area of knowledge workers, making an improvement in its Intellectual Property domain. Chandigarh, holding the top rank amongst Union Territories has made huge investments and improvements in schools and higher education. It increased the ICT labs from 59% to almost 100% which is an impressive feat.
| Rank | States | North East & Hill States | Union Territories |
| 1 | Karnataka | Manipur | Chandigarh |
| 2 | Telangana | Uttarakhand | Delhi |
| 3 | Haryana | Meghalaya | Andaman & Nicobar Islands |
| 4 | Maharashtra | Arunachal Pradesh | Puducherry |
| 5 | Tamil Nadu | Himachal Pradesh | Goa |
Category Wise Ranking of Top 5 Rankers
While the ranking of the states has been decided by the overall scores obtained, States like Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand have fared better than the top-rankers in areas like business environment and investment, innovation business environment, expenditure on school education, etc.
Even though the States have shown improvement since the last report, the country as a whole needs to work on its federal structure so that the states and UTs work in tandem; learn and provide support to peers to promote inclusive growth.
For more information, please feel free to contact us at info@ssrana.com.
Abhay Nanda, Intern at S.S. Rana & Co. has assisted in the research of this article.
Related Posts
India climbs 35 ranks in Global Innovation Index
Global Innovation Index 2020: India ranked at 48 among 131 countries