Kerala and Chandigarh have topped as state and union territory respectively on the NITI Aayog's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) India Index for 2020, released on June 3. They scored 75 and 79 out of a possible 100.
The all India average is 66, an improvement of six points from the 2019 score of 60.
The SDGs are a blueprint for present and future peace and prosperity of 17 goals laid down by the United Nations. These are to be acted on by nations big and small; developed and developing as global partners.
After Kerala, the top performing states are Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu with 74 points; Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka and Uttarakhand with 72 points; Sikkim with 71 points and Maharashtra with 70 points.
The worst performing state is Bihar with 52 points, followed by Jharkhand with 56 and Assam with 57 points. Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have 60 points while Chattisgarh, Nagaland and Odisha have 61 points.
In UTs, after Chandigarh, Delhi and Puducherry have scored 68 points each. The UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu has score 62.
Based on these scores, the countries are divided in the following four groups:
- Aspirant (0 - 49): No state is in this group
- Performer (50 - 65)
- Front-runner (65 - 99)
- Achiever (100): No state is in this group
The biggest gainers since the 2019 report are Mizoram, gaining 12 points (from 56 currently to 68), Haryana gaining 10 points (from 57 to 67) and Uttarakhand gaining 8 points (from 64 to 72)
Here's the country score on 16 goals, and the top performing states. These goals span 70 targets and 115 different indicators.
The country's performance on SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) is the highest, where it has scored 83 and 92 out of 100 respectively.
While states and the country have only been provided with a score on 16 of these goals, the 17th goal - Partnerships for the Goals - has been provided as a qualitative overview due to a lack of availability of data. The overview includes India's resource mobilisation and spending efficiency, promotion of entrepreneurship and various coalitions to meet these goals, India's COVID-19 response and the improvement of accountability, data availability and monitoring.
Read the full report here.
