KOCHI: Kerala secured the top position in social indicators, which include health and education, but stood at a poor 15th spot among 17 large states in the fiscal segment, in the ranking of states released by CareEdge Ratings, a leading credit rating agency, on Tuesday.
Kerala ranked seventh in the composite ranking, which captures seven key pillars – economic, fiscal, infrastructure, financial development, social, governance and environment covering 50 indicators.
Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka were top three in composite ranking, while Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Haryana were in the fourth, fifth and sixth spots, respectively. Andhra Pradesh (8), Odisha (9), Punjab (10), Chhattisgarh (11), Rajasthan (12), West Bengal (13), Uttar Pradesh (14), Madhya Pradesh (15) and Jharkhand (16) figured after Kerala. Bihar (17) was at the bottom of the table.
“Kerala excelled in the social rankings occupying the top spot. Within social indicators, while Kerala scored strongly across the health and education related indicators, it lagged on the employment front,” said Rajani Sinha, chief economist, CareEdge Ratings.
Social pillar comprises education (gross enrolment ratio in secondary education, literacy rate), health (infant mortality rate, life expectancy), labour (unemployment rate) and poverty (multidimensional poverty index), which are critical for attaining sustainable and inclusive growth. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra were placed second and third in social segments. The bottom three states were UP (15), MP (16) and Bihar (17).
The worrying segment for Kerala is the fiscal pillar, which includes budget deficit (fiscal deficit, budget deficit), debt repayments, guarantees (total outstanding liabilities as a percentage of GSDP, revenue deficit as a percentage of GSDP), debt repayments (total outstanding liabilities-% of GSDP), interest expenses, revenue generation capacity, debt management and others.
“Kerala fared poorly on the fiscal pillar, ranking 15th, among large states. This can be attributed to a weaker score for budget deficits, debt, and quality of spending. Going ahead, focus on improving the state’s fiscal health remains critical,” said Ranjani.
She said at the 9th position, Kerala fared better in the financial development segment compared to states like UP, MP, Odisha and Gujarat due to credit disbursements by banks and loans to self-help groups.
Kerala stood 11th in the economy pillar, which takes into consideration GSDP growth, inflation and investments. Top three performers were Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
A segment where Kerala came in top five was infrastructure, comprising physical infrastructure such as per capita power availability, air passenger traffic, road density, railway, etc, and social infrastructure, including availability of doctors and pupil teacher ratio.
Kerala’s ranking on seven pillars
Economic 11
Fiscal 15
Financial Development 9
Infrastructure 5
Social 1
Governance 8
Environment 7
Composite ranking 7
Top composite rankers
Maharashtra
Gujarat
Karnataka