By Pragati Saha
In the last decade, India’s Global Innovation Index number rose from 91 to 38, said Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who expressed confidence that India will be in the top 10 in the upcoming decade.
The StartUp India campaign, initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is revealing results. India now carries the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world, which transforms the youth from job seekers to job creators, he stated. Shah spoke at the opening ceremony of the Gujarat government’s Startup Conclave.
He stated that the Global Innovation Index was recently released. In 2025 we moved into 38th place, but in 2015 we were ranked in 91st place. This shows the potential of our people. He truly believes that in the next three years, India will be in the top 10 countries and lead in global innovation, considering the skills and performance of our youth.
The startup India scheme is the main initiative of the Indian government, started in 2016, which mostly aimed at bringing new ideas and building a strong startup ecosystem and changing india from a job-seeking to a job-creating country.
Back in 2014, we had only 500 startups. Now, there are 1.92 lakh startups registered with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). In 2014, we had four unicorns, and now we have 120 such companies with a total market value of more than $350 million, Shah mentioned. He also mentioned that Gujarat has been at the forefront of the startup industry for the last four years.
According to the commerce ministry, India has more than 73,000 startups with women in the leadership roles.Today, 52% of the startups are located in Tier-II and Tier-III cities. 48% of them are founded by women.
He mentioned that Chief Minister Bhupendra patel and his team of ministers and government officials have jointly made Gujarat the center of the startup revolution. Gujarat is one of the top five states in the country. 16,000 startups are in Gujarat. Ahmedabad alone is in the top 4 cities with 6,650 startups. Gujarat has become the best-performing state in the startup sector for the past four years.