Karnataka maintains the number one position in the India Innovation Index 2020. The second edition of the Innovation Index, an exercise begun by NITI Aayog last year, was released on Wednesday at a virtual event.
The north-south divide in the ranking is stark, with all top spots going south of the Vindhyas—Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala follow Karnataka. In the smaller states and Union territories category, Delhi is at top slot, while Himachal Pradesh leads in the north east and hill states' category. Sikkim, which was the leader in this section last year, has fallen to the fourth spot.
At the bottom of the lists are Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya and Lakshadweep. The rankings show a strong linkage between innovation and the gross domestic product of the states.
The index ranks states and Union territories based on their relative performance in supporting innovation. “A kind of competitive federalism,” as NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant puts it. The ranking was done in collaboration with the Institute of Competitiveness, and they used 36 indicators for assessment. These indicators are broadly divided into five sections—human capital, investment, knowledge workers, business environment and safety and legal environment.
Vice chairman of NITI Aayog Rajiv Kumar said that the aim would be to get the India Innovation Index in sync with the Global Innovation Index, which uses around 80 parameters. The aim of these rankings is to encourage states to provide the right environment for innovations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a big proponent of bringing in innovative interventions and thinking to solve developmental issues in the country. Kumar said that the competition should heighten to the level that states begin asking themselves, which one will be able to bring top-of-the-line talent back to India.
Along with the Innovation Index, the NITI Aayog also released a ranking of the top enablers of innovation in the country. Kerala is the leader of the enablers, followed by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Among the north east and hill states, Sikkim is the leader and Chandigarh tops the UT and small states' category.
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Amit Kapoor of the Institute of Competitiveness said that Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, though not positioned high up in the rankings right now, are poised to be the drivers of innovation in the future, given the enabling environment being created by the state governments. Gujarat is ninth in the enabler list and UP is 16; both have actually fallen since last year's ranking. In the Innovation Index ranking, Gujarat is in the eighth position and Uttar Pradesh in the ninth.
Kapoor said that much of the R&D in India is driven through government funding, but the private sector needs to pitch in now. In Israel, for instance, 70 per cent of the R&D is in the corporate sector. He also noted that while India's performance was improving, there are still many rungs to climb. For instance, India has 252 researchers per million of the population, way behind the top world ranker in this category, Denmark, which has 8,065.
