Gujarat has clinched the top spot in NITI Aayog's inaugural , which evaluates Indian states on their business ecosystem. However, the report reveals a sobering reality: not a single state managed to cross a score of sixty.
84
Total assessed indicators
⏳ Time Machine
How today’s news fits into the bigger picture
1990s
China's provincial competition
China implemented provincial economic competition, driving massive local regulatory reforms and fueling its manufacturing boom.
2015
First state rankings
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade introduced basic ease-of-doing-business state rankings to spur competition.
Late 2024
Global supply chain shift
Multinationals accelerated their 'China plus one' strategy, increasing the pressure on Indian states to offer ready-to-use industrial land.
Today
NITI Aayog launches its first Investment Friendliness Index, with Gujarat topping the charts but all states scoring under 60.
What happens next?
State governments will introduce targeted regulatory reforms in late 2026 to improve their scores ahead of the next annual ranking.
The competition among Indian states to attract global capital has a new, official scoreboard. NITI Aayog has released its first-ever Investment Friendliness Index, ranking 36 states and Union Territories across **84 distinct indicators** including infrastructure, land availability, and regulatory speed. While industrial powerhouse Gujarat emerged as the national leader, followed closely by Uttarakhand and Goa, the index highlights a significant development gap. Crucially, not a single state in India managed to cross the **60-point threshold** out of a maximum score of 100, indicating that even the best-performing regions have substantial regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles left to clear. This comprehensive index moves beyond simple ease-of-doing-business rankings, offering a highly structured framework designed to push states into executing deeper structural reforms to attract long-term manufacturing and technology investments.
💭 If you're wondering…
Gujarat excelled due to its superior industrial infrastructure, readily available land banks, and faster single-window clearance systems for new factories.
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Official sources
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