‘Delhi most Internet-ready state’

On top mainly due to ‘e-infrastructure & e-participation’

Delhi has emerged as the top ranked state in terms of overall Internet readiness, overtaking last year’s winner Maharashtra, as per a recent study.

Delhi takes the first slot not only amongst small states and Union Territories, but also when all states are taken together. The national capital is followed by Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The findings were a part of a report, titled “Index of Internet Readiness of Indian States”, published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Nielsen. As per the report, Delhi got this rank primarily because of its “einfrastructure and e-participation”.

The report highlights the performance of the states regarding different measures of Internet readiness index, which is a composite benchmark of four components, i.e., eInfrastructure index, eparticipation index, IT environment and government e-services index.

“Given the rapid advancement in e-services and e-commerce, it is essential to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the states. While this would help the business and governments to leverage the strength, policy measures can also be taken where improvements are required,” said the report.

One of the key highlights of this year’s report is measuring the digital start-up ecosystem of states.

The report finds that Delhi, Karnataka, and Maharashtra are the top three states with the highest number of digital start-ups.

Releasing the report, Ms Aruna Sundararajan, secretary, ministry of electronics and information technology, said, “We are hopeful that India will leapfrog from the present 155th position to world’s top 5th in connectivity within the next 5-6 years.”

“The combination of various indigenous digital platforms along with innovative and disruptive startups holds the greatest scope for digital transformation in India. Post demonetisation, the country today has 3 million POS as compared to 1.5 lakhs POS earlier which is clearly a transformation and going forward too the infrastructure for digital payments will grow 3X within a span of one year,” Ms Sundararajan added.

Significantly, even within smaller states, the Northeast states ranked low in terms of overall Internet readiness.