CUTTACK: Expressing dissatisfaction over the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rankings by the NITI Aayog for 2020-21, the State government on Thursday called for reworking the assessment system by the national think tank. Though its composite score has improved from 58 to 61, the State had fallen a few notches to 19th rank from 15th slot in 2019-20. Odisha remains among the bottom five states along with Nagaland and Chhattisgarh. Performances of the states were assessed from 16 SDGs.
“There is a need for the reworking of the SDG assessment index taking into consideration the ground-level developmental outcomes of all State and Central government schemes,” said Chief Secretary Suresh Mahapatra. Addressing a consultative workshop on SDGs with NITI Aayog here, Mahapatra said the ultimate goal is to achieve the 2030 agenda more inclusively and not to assess the outcomes of one or other specific scheme.
The State government has been maintaining that the assessment of NITI Aayog is not as per the inputs against the parameters pertaining to 16 goals. The Chief Secretary said the State government is committed to effecting improvement in people’s quality of living through various schemes and programmes aligned to the human development index (HDI) for achieving the 2030 agenda. He asked all departments to give their considered views and updated data inputs against 115 indicators pertaining to 16 goals for SDG India Index 4.0.
Development Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Jena said the State ranked No-1 in SDG-13 (climate action), and SDG 14 (life below water). Out of the 16 goals evaluated for 2020-21, Odisha was the frontrunner in nine indicators and performer in one indicator.
He said that Odisha’s performance against many indicators was not appropriately computed as achievements in State-specific schemes were not taken into account. In some other indicators, the old data were used while in other cases there was no clarity of the data sources. NITI Aayog Advisor Sanyukta Samaddar said Odisha has been a State of reforms and innovations. She hoped that SDG Index 4.0 would be finalised by end of March.