SINGAPORE: Maharashtra has emerged as the top performer in overall competitiveness in a study by the Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) under the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.The notion of competitiveness is ranked on the basis of four main aspects: macroeconomic stability, government and institutional setting, financial, business and manpower conditions, and quality of life and infrastructure development.The Asia Competitiveness Institute provides an annual report on the competitiveness ranking and simulations for Greater China and sub-national economies and five regions of India. The findings and general recommendations were made public today at Singapore. The ACI is one of the research wings of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore.“This has been an annual exercise for the institute since 2000, and it ranks states in India and provinces in China and Indonesia. This year’s report shows that India needs to catch up and unlock any self-imposed constraints to unleash its dormant potential, in the context of its new government,” said Tan Khee Giap, co-director, associate professor of public policy, Asia Competitiveness Institute.The report finds that the imperatives for India include faster, more inclusive and sustainable growth and the increasing importance of a federal structure to need to work towards strengthening the country’s laggard performance relative to other emerging market economies in Asia, especially vis-a-vis China. The data used for the survey is from 2013-2014.“The study measures overall competitiveness, four environments, 11 sub-environments, and 75 indicators. It is important for states to know how they rank competitively and what they can do to improve their position,” said Tan.According to the study, Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu are the top three states for overall competitiveness, followed by Gujarat Uttar Pradesh , Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala and Haryana. States ranking at the bottom include Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura, Bihar, Uttarakhand, and Jharkhand.Maharashtra tops consistently under the four aspects of macroeconomic stability, government and institutional setting, financial, businesses and manpower conditions, as well as quality of life and infrastructure development.“The ranking of regions within a country is an important exercise but it may be more important for the evolution of public policy in India to know how its economy falls short of global benchmarks,” said Pulapre Balakrishnan, professor of Ashoka University in Haryana. Balakrishnan was one of the panelists at the programme.(Travel for this story was sponsored by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.)