One of the leading credit rating agencies in India, CARE Ratings recently released its first edition of states’ rankings 2023 wherein it has attempted to come up with a comprehensive score covering seven pillars (Economic, Fiscal, Social, Infrastructure, Financial Inclusion, Environment and Governance) and 46 indicators to rank the states.

Albeit Andhra Pradesh was overall ranked 8th in the composite rankings with a score of 46 it scored top points for governance and environment.

Care Edge Ratings ranked the state of Andhra Pradesh no 1 in terms of the governance and Environment pillars with a score of 67 and 64.6 respectively.

‘Among the large states, Andhra Pradesh scored quite well on the governance and environment parameters. High rank in the Ease of Doing Business helped AP on the governance score, although it needs to translate into IEMs filed and FDI flows’ said Mr Mehul Pandya, MD&CEO of Care Ratings speaking exclusively to Vizag Industrial Scan.

The state of Andhra Pradesh similarly outperformed in the environment category wherein it showed relatively favourable performance in terms of air quality, solid waste management, forest cover and renewable installed capacity. However the indicators which pulled AP down included economic, fiscal, financial inclusion, social and infrastructure. ‘AP has scope to do better on these indicators’ said Mr Pandya.

Among the 17 large states ranked Maharashtra topped the charts with an overall composite score of 55.7 followed by Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Karnataka.