The commerce and industry ministry's arm DPIIT on January 16 will announce the ranking of states and union territories for 2022 based on initiatives taken for start-ups, an official said. 

The exercise aims to evaluate measures taken by states/UTs to boost the start-up ecosystem during a specified period. It also aimed at supporting states and Union territories (UTs) in developing their start-up ecosystem and learning from each other's best practices. 

"The ranking is a periodic capacity building exercise developed and released by DPIIT that evaluates states and UTs on their efforts to build an ecosystem conducive to the growth of start-ups," the official said. 

The major objectives of the ranking exercise are - facilitating states and UTs to identify, learn, and replace good practices, highlighting the policy intervention by States and UTs for promoting the start-up ecosystem, and fostering competitiveness among states. 

The last ranking was released on July 4, 2022, in which Gujarat and Karnataka were ranked among best performer states in providing a strong ecosystem for start-ups. This will be the fourth edition of the exercise. 

In the last ranking, states and UTs were evaluated across seven reform areas consisting of 26 action points, ranging from institutional support, fostering innovation, access to market, incubation, and funding support. 

The government is taking a series of steps to promote these enterprises. 

The start-up India initiative was launched in January 2016 to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation, boosting startups, and encouraging investments in the start-up ecosystem of the country. 

Emphasising and promoting recognition of start-ups contributing towards nation-building, socio-economic development, and self-reliance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2022, declared January 16 as National Start-up Day. 

The number of registered start-ups has jumped to 1.17 lakh at present from about 400 in 2016. 

With an aim to bring together the country's start-ups, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and other stakeholders, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is organising the Startup India Innovation Week 2024 from January 10 to 18th. 

During the week, eight virtual Ask Me Anything (AMA) live sessions are planned to be conducted with start-up ecosystem enablers including incubators and accelerators, investors, mentors, unicorns, corporates, start-ups, academia, and government to build the capacity of the ecosystem. 

Further, five dedicated mentorship sessions focused on 'How to Start Up' are also planned on capacity building of aspiring entrepreneurs and student entrepreneurs on topics such as understanding business structures, processes to incorporate an entity, and building a business plan. 

The National Start-up Award is also an initiative to recognise and reward outstanding startups and ecosystem enablers that are building innovative products or solutions and scalable enterprises, with high potential for employment generation or wealth creation, demonstrating measurable social impact.