Changing criteria, faulty measurement

Niti Aayog’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) India Index for 2020-21 presents a mixed picture, with a minor improvement in the overall national score but a slide in certain important areas and a widening gap among states. There was a change in methodology in measuring performance on some SDGs. It has also been noted that the index is at variance with the State of India’s Environment Report 2021, which also assessed the country’s performance on SDGs. The Niti Aayog Index has seen the overall SDG score move from 60 in 2019 to 66 in 2021, mainly on the strength of achievements related to clean energy, urban development and health. The programmes to reach electricity and cooking fuel to households may have made those gains possible. But there is a major decline in performance in important areas like economic growth, work, infrastructure and industry. This may be partly because of the Covid impact. Some gains of last year have been lost.

The index shows major differences among states in their achievements. Kerala has topped the index, with Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu taking the second position and Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Uttarakhand coming third. Bihar and Jharkhand are at the bottom. There are big gaps in performance between the states in the south and the west on the one hand and those in the north and the east on the other. But there are complaints from states about how their performance has been assessed. Odisha, which has dropped in rankings and is among the laggards, has said that Niti Aayog used only central schemes for its assessment and ignored the state’s schemes. There is criticism in Bihar, too. The important message is that the disparities between the states should not be allowed to widen further, and backward states need to improve their performance.

But some questions that have been raised about the index need answers. The index showed an improvement in inequality from 2019, which is highly improbable because it could only have got worse in the Covid-hit year. This happened because the Niti Aayog index dropped important economic parameters like the Gini coefficient, which measures the distribution of income, and the growth rate for per capita household expenditure among 40% of rural and urban populations. They were replaced with social indicators like representation of women and weaker sections in legislatures, crimes against SC/ST communities, etc. This may have distorted the inequality value. As against the Niti Aayog’s finding that the performance on SDGs has improved, the State of India’s Environment report showed that the country slipped two places to rank 117 among 193 countries. So, there are two views on the country’s performance now.