SHILLONG, Dec 20: With a score of 53.22, Meghalaya has been ranked 24th in the country among all states and Union Territories in the Social Progress Index (SPI) for States and Districts of India.
The SPI was released by the Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister along with the Institute for Competitiveness and Social Progress Imperative on Tuesday.
It is a comprehensive tool that can serve as a holistic measure of a country’s social progress at the national and sub-national levels. The index assesses states and districts based on 12 components across three critical dimensions of social progress – Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Well-being and Opportunity.
It uses an extensive framework comprising 89 indicators at the state-level and 49 at the district-level.
Based on the SPI scores, states and districts were ranked under six tiers of social progress – Tier I: Very High Social Progress; Tier II: High Social Progress; Tier III: Upper Middle Social Progress; Tier IV: Lower Middle Social Progress; Tier V: Low Social Progress and Tier VI: Very Low Social Progress. Meghalaya secured a position in Tier-IV.
Puducherry had the highest SPI score of 65.99, attributable to its remarkable performance across components like Personal Freedom and Choice, Shelter, and Water and Sanitation.
Lakshadweep and Goa closely followed Puducherry with scores of 65.89 and 65.53 respectively. Jharkhand and Bihar had the lowest scores of 43.95 and 44.47 respectively.
For the dimension of Basic Human Needs, Goa, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and Chandigarh were the top four states with the best performance in Water and Sanitation and Shelter.
In addition, Goa had the highest component score for Water and Sanitation, followed by Kerala which scored the highest across the Nutrition and Basic Medical Care component. Chandigarh and Nagaland emerged as the frontrunners for Shelter and Personal Safety, respectively.
Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Goa emerged as the best-performing states for the Foundations of Well-being. For Environmental Quality, the top three states were Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya.
Tamil Nadu achieved the highest component score of 72.00 for the Opportunity dimension. Within this dimension, Andaman and Nicobar Islands had the highest score for Personal Rights, while Sikkim topped the list for Inclusiveness. Puducherry attained the highest scores across two components in this dimension – Personal Freedom and Choice and Access to Advanced Education.
Among the northeastern states, Sikkim and Mizoram were ranked 4th and 5th, respectively in the overall list. Nagaland secured the 14th rank, Arunachal Pradesh was 18th and Manipur was ranked 20th. Only Tripura (27th) and Assam (34th) were ranked behind Meghalaya.
