In an attempt to provide a systematic account of the social progress made at all levels in the country, the Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister (EAC-PM) has released today a ranking of states and districts measuring the social progress made by them.
The report has been prepared by the Institute for Competitiveness headed by Amit Kapoor, and the Social Progress Imperative headed by Michael Green and was mandated by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India.
The Social Progress Index (SPI) assesses the performance of states and districts on three dimensions of social progress: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of well-being, and Opportunity. Within each dimension, there are four components.
The dimension of Basic Human Needs assesses the performance of states and districts in terms of Nutrition and Basic Medical Care (NBMC), Water and Sanitation (WS), Personal Safety (PS) and Shelter (S).
The dimension of Foundations of Wellbeing evaluates the progress made by the country across the components of Access to Basic Knowledge (ABK), Access to Information and Communication (AIC), Health and Wellness (HW), and Environmental Quality (EQ).
The dimension of Opportunity focuses on aspects of Personal Rights (PR), Personal Freedom and Choice (PFC), Inclusiveness (I), and Access to Advanced Education (AAE).
Overall, Nagaland with a SPI score of 59.24 was ranked 14 which belonged to Tier 2: High social progress (SPI score range 58.76 – 60.76) among 36 states and UTs assessed.
According to the report, Nagaland attained high scores across components like Personal Safety (88.06), Water and Sanitation (64.39), Personal Rights (62.68), Personal Freedom and Choice (73.15), and Inclusiveness (59.09).
Nagaland with the highest score of 88.06 in SPI recorded the lowest incidence of crimes against women and children in the country compared to other states.
However, Nagaland with 57.9 SPI was also among other North-Eastern states such as Meghalaya (63.8) and Arunachal Pradesh (64.9) having the lowest percent of child vaccination in India.
Nagaland with 1.04 per cent was among the lowest per cent of groundwater extraction as compared to the rest of the country.
Zunheboto district from Nagaland was among the top 17 districts with the highest levels of hypertension among men (more than 40 per cent), and in women (more than 30 per cent). Zunheboto also recorded the highest increase in the country with the percentage of underweight children (30.8) which was an increase by 20 points.
Mokokchung recorded the best in the country in Personal Safety
Meanwhile, in the all India district-wise analysis for the component assessing the performance of districts in terms of murder crimes, crimes committed against women, crimes against children, violent crimes and road death, Mokokchung district attained the highest SPI score of 89.89 in the country in Personal Safety under Basic Human Needs dimension.
According to district-wise data, Mokokchung recorded the following: (See table)
Mokokchung Times