New Delhi [India], Apr 21 : A report published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India ( IAMAI) and Nielsen ranked Delhi number one regarding overall Internet readiness, overtaking last year's winner Maharashtra.

The report titled 'Index of Internet Readiness of Indian States' was released by Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ( MeiTy), Government of India on Wednesday.

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

According to the report, Delhi gets this rank primarily because of its fabulous e-infrastructure and e-participation.

"India today is one of the most rapidly digitising economies in the world with the telecom industry leading the change. Things have improved multifold with state governments of Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana among others taking proactive steps to improve connectivity and internet reach," said Sundararajan.

"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 to the infrastructure for digital payments will grow 3X within a span of one year." she added.

Among the smaller states, Delhi is at the top followed by Chandigarh and Puducherry. Chandigarh is ranked second in both e-infrastructure and e-participation. Puducherry ranks after Chandigarh when measured on the e-infrastructure index.

Significantly, even within smaller states, the northeastern states ranked low in terms of overall internet readiness. Therefore, investment and infrastructure development needs to be increased in the region.

Among the northeastern states, Nagaland tops the list, closely followed by Manipur and Tripura. Nagaland leads in IT environment and performs moderately well in other categories to get to the top.

Internet readiness index is a composite benchmark of four components-e-Infrastructure index, e-participation index, IT-Environment and government e-services index. All four components have equal weightage in this model.

Separately, a fifth index, named the 'Core Internet' index has been created this year, consisting of select variables already used in constructing the above indices. The purpose of the index is to give a sharper perspective for digital industries looking to expand their business in Indian States.

One of the key highlights of this year's report is measuring the digital start-up ecosystem of states. The report finds that Karnataka, Delhi and Maharashtra are the top three states with the highest number of digital start-ups.

The study says that of the total 242 start-up incubators in the country, 61 start-up incubators are in Tamil Nadu. About 83 percent of these incubators are in 10 states, namely Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Telangana, Gujarat, West Bengal, Delhi and Rajasthan.

In the North East, except for Manipur where a single start-up incubator is present, none of the other states have one.

The report highlights the performance of the states regarding different measures of internet readiness 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. (ANI)