NEW DELHI: India’s sustainable development goal (SDG) score improved from 66 in 2020-21 to 71 in 2023-24. The fourth edition of the SDG India Index 2023-24 was released on Friday by chief executive officer of NITI Aayog BVR Subrahmanyam.
The Niti Aayog CEO attributed improvement in India’s SDG score to a number of policy measures taken by the government. He highlighted among others 10 crore LPG connections under PM Ujjwala Yojana, over 30 crore beneficiaries under Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and coverage of over 80 crore people under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
India improved its scores on all parameters barring one -- reduced inequalities, where its score fell from 67 in 2020-21 to 65 in 2023-24. The fall in inequality score was attributed to inclusion of Gini Coefficient, which determines a nation’s level of income inequality. “We want this index to be world class and very stable. So we included the Gini Coefficient. So the introduction of the Gini Coefficient led to the fall in inequality score,” explained BVR Subrahmanyam of Niti Aayog.
He, however, pointed out that the parameter ‘Reduced Inequality’ is not only about income inequality, and that it also measures things like women participation in the labour force, crime against SC/ST.
The sharpest improvement was shown in no Poverty parameter, where the score improved from 60 in 2020-21 to 72 in 2023-24. As per Niti Aayog, multidimensional poverty for 2022-23 has dropped from 24.8% in 2015-16 to 11.28% in 2022-23. Nearly 99.7% persons demanding employment under MNREGS were offered employment in 2023-24.
Niti Aayog CEO attributes policy measures for this
Niti Aayog chief executive officer BVR Subrahmanyam attributed improvement in SDG score to policy measures taken by the government. He said among others, 10 crore LPG connections under PM Ujjwala Yojana, 30 crore beneficiaries under AB-PMJAY