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India: Kerala retains top spot in sustainable development goals index

New Delhi - Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu share the second spot in index

Kerala retained its top ranking in Niti Aayog’s SDG India Index 2020-21, while Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu shared the second spot. The worst performing states in the India index included Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam.

“Our effort of monitoring SDGs through the SDG India Index and Dashboard continues to be widely noticed and applauded around the world,” Rajiv Kumar, vice-chairman, Niti Aayog, said while releasing the SDG Index.

“It remains a rare data-driven initiative to rank our states and union territories by computing a composite index on the SDGs.”

The SDG ( Sustainable Development Goals) index evaluates the progress of states and union territories (UTs) on social, economic and environmental parameters. Developed in collaboration with the UN, it tracks progress based on 115 indicators.

India’s overall score across SDGs improved marginally by six points driven by the countrywide improvement across clean water and sanitation (goal 6) and affordable and clean energy (goal 7).

“Mizoram, Haryana and Uttarakhand are the top gainers in 2020-21 in terms of improvement in score from 2019, with an increase of 12, 10 and eight points respectively,” said Niti Aayog.

In 2019, just 10 states and UTs were in the frontrunners category with scores ranging between 65 and 99. This time, 12 more states and UTs were added to the category.