Moa Jamir
When the first ‘States’ Startup Ranking’ was released in 2018, Nagaland was ranked as a ‘Beginner.’ The ranking by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Union Ministry of Commerce & Industry, among others, was initiated to “facilitate the ease of building a start-up and doing business across the country.”
A year after, it improved to ‘Aspiring Leader’ in 2019, and as per the latest 2021 ranking, the State maintained the same status. While most of the national-based ranking of State and Union Territories (UTs) in recent years are categorised under positive-sounding terms like best or top performers, leaders or aspiring leaders and emerging start-up ecosystems, the position of each entity in the list give a fair idea about where it stands.
On a positive note, Nagaland was ranked 4th among Category B states comprising of UTs, North-East States and Goa. Among others, the report noted that the Government of Nagaland has taken praiseworthy initiatives including capacity-building programmes for women entrepreneurs, a one-stop portal to access information for all start-ups, and launching the Lockdown Challenge 2020 to ‘ignite young innovative minds,’ recognised as a best ‘practice.’ During the previous ranking in 2019, the strong provision of seed funding and Nagaland Innovation Fund (NIF) were lauded.
However, the State-specific performance report released along with the ranking suggested that while Nagaland is an ‘aspiring leader’ for startup ecosystem, the State is lacking in some vital reform areas, practically making the effort ineffectual.
Out of 7 reform areas used in the ranking - Institutional Support, Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Capacity Building of Enablers, Access to Market, Incubation Support, Funding Support, and Mentorship Support – the State could score some points above others just in three areas.
On Institutional Support, the State has scored higher than 15% of the participating states while on Capacity Building of Enablers, it scored higher than 33% of the participants. In Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship, it was just 5%.
However, in the four other key reform areas - Access to Market, Incubation Support, Funding Support, and Mentorship Support, the State scored nothing.
When the ‘Startup India in Nagaland’ portal was launched on August 16, 2019, the then Chief Secretary (late) Temjen Toy stated that the objective was to facilitate the growth of “at least 500 start-ups in the next five years” with a focus on establishing innovative ‘Made in Nagaland’ products and services.
Nearly three years after, the portal informed that only 59 startups are registered, a far cry from the 500 initially targeted, with just 2 years to go. In the ‘News and activities’ section of the portal, the ‘latest’ activities shown are “Boot Camps conducted at various colleges” posted on October 23, 2019, while “Startup Incentives” dated May 18, 2022, is posted under “Latest Updates’ section. Incidentally, between May 18, 2022, and September 2019, there are no ‘updates’. Did the flurry of activities conducted till October 2019 help in improving ranking from ‘Beginner’ to Aspiring Leader’ in 2019? And has the lack of activities thereafter resulted in maintaining the same status in 2021? There could be casual linkages.
To become effective, those at the helms of affairs should go back to the drawing board and chalk out an organic way forward as well as incorporate the policy intervention, capacity development, digital infrastructure and handholding support measures recommended for the State. Devoid of this, the startup initiative in Nagaland would remain only a paper tiger: ineffectual, rudderless and stunted.
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