Guwahati:

Sikkim has slipped down from the first to the fourth position in the second edition of Indian Innovation Index 2020 under “North-Eastern and Hill States” category while Manipur stood at the third position.

Himachal Pradesh with 25.06 score moved up from the second position to emerge as the top ranker this year, while top performer in 2019, in India Innovation Index, Sikkim with 20.28 score went down to the fourth position.

The Index which was released by Niti Aayog on Wednesday examines the innovation capabilities and performance of the states and union territories. The first edition of the index was launched in October 2019.

With a score of 23.50 Uttarakhand bagged the second position, and Manipur at 22.78 bagged the third position in North-Eastern/Hill States category.

With a score of 16.93 Mizoram stood at the fifth position, followed by Assam, 16.38, Arunachal Pradesh, 14.90, Nagaland, 14.11, Tripura, 12.84, and Meghalaya, 12.15.

In the “Major States” category, Karnataka continued to occupy the top position, while Maharashtra moved past Tamil Nadu to reach the second place. Telangana, Kerala, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab completed the top ten in that order.

The India Innovation Index 2020 was released by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar, in the presence of Member (Health) Dr VK Paul, Member (Agriculture) Dr Ramesh Chand, CEO Amitabh Kant, Adviser (Science and Technology) Neeraj Sinha, and Institute for Competitiveness Chair Dr Amit Kapoor.

In the second edition too, the index found that the level of competitiveness among the states and union territories was high, which is essential for them to continually improve on their enabling factors as well as innovation performance.