From Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI: For a change, Meghalaya and other Northeastern states have done better in NITI Aayog’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Index by combating and eradicating poverty.
These states were joined by the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the northern state of Uttarakhand.
Incidentally, in the same report for 2018 none of the Northeastern states were in the front-runner category, according to a report.
States like Gujarat and Maharashtra along with Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Manipur, Jharkhand, Chandigarh and Delhi, are ranked as ‘aspirants’ while the newly formed state of Telangana, along with West Bengal, Rajasthan and Karnataka are ranked as ‘under-performers’.
Besides Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram have been rated as front-runners.
Kerala and Himachal Pradesh were ranked at the top along with Chandigarh in terms of the Composite Index. Kerala gained points for its efforts to reduce hunger, achieving gender equality and quality education. Himachal Pradesh’s rank was boosted for providing clean water and sanitation, and for reducing inequalities and preserving the mountain ecosystem.
The current phase is based on the performance of the states and UTs across 13 of the 17 identified sustainable development goals (SDG). The SDG Index is designed to promote healthy competition among states by evaluating their progress in social, economic and environmental terms that can help India in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030.
The category under which each state is rated is based on the points they earn across the 17 SDGs. The rating categories are achiever (100), front-runner (65-99), under-performer (50-64) and aspirant (0-49).It is estimated that India needs $2.5 trillion for achieving the SDG 7 – access to affordable and clean energy till 2030.
NITI Aayog undertook the extensive exercise of measuring India and its states’ progress towards the SDGs for 2030, culminating in the development of the first in 2018. The SDG India Index is intended to provide a holistic view on the social, economic and environmental status of the country and its states and UTs.
It has been designed to provide an aggregate assessment of the performance of all Indian States and UTs, and to help leaders and change makers evaluate their performance on social, economic and environmental parameters.
The Index tracks the progress of all the states and Union Territories (UTs) on a set of 62 National Indicators, measuring their progress on the outcomes of interventions and schemes of the central government. The Index can be useful to states/UTs in assessing their starting point on the SDGs.
This vital report supports states/UTs to benchmark their progress against national targets and performance of their peers to understand reasons for differential performance and devise better strategies to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
It also helps in identifying priority areas in which they need to invest and improve by enabling them to measure incremental progress.