What are the new parameters designed by the NITI Aayog to quantify the social progress of Indian States?

The NITI Aayog has come up with the first of the country’s index to measure social progress. It will measure the parameters of health, education and water management.  The indices are as follows:

• Health index-it shall be measured with reference to sex ratio at birth, infant mortality rate and public health centres functioning 24×7.
• Education index-It is also known as the School Education Quality Index (SEQI). It will ise 34 indicators to rank states across five domains which are equity outcomes, governance process, access outcomes, structural reforms and learning outcomes.
• Composite Water Management Index-It seeks to assess the performance of states in terms of efficient management of the water resources. It is pressurizing states to charge water usage so that wastage is minimized.

The purpose of these indicators to make states compete amongst each other not only in terms of economic ranking but also in social indicators. It is similar to the Human Development Index and is scheduled to start from December. The improvement will be measured by measuring change in index from the base year to the reference year and in the subsequent years. The base year is being taken as 2005. It will perform triple functions: providing incentives to states based on their performance, improving outcome of every sector and monitoring state level development in terms of these indicators. This development was prompted by the recent ranking of India as 131st out of 188 countries by the HDI.

Topics: GS-III: Indian Economy Issues Relating to Planning