India's 5 most innovative states

Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala have been ranked as the top five states in innovation in Niti Aayog's second Innovation Index released on Wednesday.

The index, released by Niti Aayog's vice chairman Rajiv Kumar and CEO Amitabh Kant, has been developed on the lines of the Global Innovation Index.

Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar have been ranked at the bottom of the index.

Karnataka topped the index for the second year in a row.

Among Union Territories, Delhi topped the chart, while in the North-Eastern and hill states category Himachal Pradesh occupied the top spot.

"Amongst major states, the average innovation score is 25.35.

“Karnataka tops at 42.5, which is attributable to its strong number of venture capital deals, registered GIs (Geographical Indications) and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) exports.

"Karnataka's high FDI inflow has also enhanced the innovation capabilities of the state," the India Innovation Index 2020 said.

Maharashtra was ranked second with an innovation score of 38, while Bihar finished last at 14.5.

"The case for the southern states as the top performers has also become stronger as four of them occupy the top-five spots within the major states," it added.

According to the index, the North-Eastern and hill states achieved an average innovation score of 17.89, with Himachal Pradesh as the best performer with a score of 25, followed by Manipur (22.77) and Sikkim (22.28).

"With 31.9 per cent of its total employment generated being knowledge-intensive, Himachal Pradesh benefits from a high number of knowledge workers," it said.

The index noted that the innovation score of Union Territories and city states averages at 26.01. Delhi was the best performer among all groups.

Among UTs, after Delhi, "Chandigarh follows second with a score of 38.57, whereas Lakshadweep and Jammu and Kashmir occupy the last two positions in the group respectively," it said.

Speaking at the event, Kumar said the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor and Niti Aayog are working closely to create a seamless interaction among institutions that are there in any city to improve India's innovation ecosystem.

He also said with the partnership with the Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan, Niti Aayog is working very hard to try and bring back and attract Indian talent from abroad.

"There are some schemes (to bring back Indian talent) already, we want to sharpen them, we want to improve them," the Niti Aayog vice chairman said.

"Maybe that will also become an indicator... Which state is able to attract a larger number of Indian talent back to the country, making our system more flexible, less red tape and by making our environment far more attractive," he added.

The first Indian Innovation Index was released in October 2019.

"Our aim is to sync Indian Innovation Index with the Global Innovation Index which has 80 parameters compared to 36 in India," Kumar said, adding that hopefully the Aayog will do it when it comes out with the third edition of the index.

Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said the India Innovation Index is a major step towards measuring innovation outcomes of states and facilitating optimal utilisation of national and state mechanisms to realise the goal of an 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'.

Kant also pointed out that the index is in line with the Aayog's vision of competitive federalism wherein states are ranked across various parameters including health, education and agriculture.

The India Innovation Index 2020, ranks the states and union territories based on their relative performance of supporting innovation, and aims to empower them to improve their innovation policies by highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.

The states and Union Territories have been divided into 17 'major states', 10 'North-Eastern and hill states', and 9 'city states and Union Territories', for effectively comparing their performance.

Overall, the framework of India Innovation Index 2020, consists of 36 indicators, which include hard data (32 indicators) and four composite indicators.