Northern - Southern Gap in Development

 

The recent reports by NITI Aayog on Sustainable Development Goal(SDG) Index,2020 has been released on the 3rd of June. This index is released to create an environment for competitive federalism among states and Uts. Every other country around the world is working to achieve the 17 goals of SDG by the United Nations(UN) till 2030.

SDG Index 3.0, 2021

This is the 3rd edition of this index which was first released in 2018. Here are some outcomes of this report:-

TOP PERFORMERS:-

TOP 5 Sates - 1. Kerela -- 75

                            2. Himachal Pradesh -- 74

                            3. Tamil Nadu -- 74

                            4. Andhra Pradesh -- 72

                            5. Goa -- 72

TOP 3 Union Territories - 1. Chandigarh -- 79

                                                     2. Delhi -- 68

                                                     3. Puducherry -- 68

WORST PERFORMERS:-

BOTTOM 5 States - 1. Bihar -- 52

                                         2. Jharkhand -- 56

                                         3. Assam -- 57

                                         4. Uttar Pradesh -- 60

                                          5. Rajasthan -- 60

• Mizoram, Harayana, and Uttarakhand are the top 3 gainers this year with an improvement of 12, 10, and 8 points respectively.

• India has slipped to 117 from 115 out of 193 countries in the 2021 world index.

The exclusive reports on the development index by NITI Aayog have raised the matter of concern as well as debate and analysis over the huge development gap between the Northern, Hilly states, and Southern states. 

9 big and major states:- Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Odissa, West Bengal, and Assam, these are some major states that refer as the Northern states or Hindi speaking states. The huge vulnerabilities among the people of these states make concern deeper when we all know that these states have been the centre of the political alignment in India. Historically, the northern states have been majorly responsible for making and breaking political organizations when we talk about central politics.

These states which stand below in every development index constitute 275 out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. Out of a total of 4120 assemblies, 1814 (44%) belong to these 9 states. There are different areas where we have to work upon, but let us talk about 5 prime areas where they lack the most.

LET US DISCUSS:

1. POVERTY

Since independence, income and spending have been the main focus of every government. But UN SDG covers other areas as well. Economic Inequality, Gender Inequality, Education, Health, clean water and sanitation, effects of climate change, etc have been added.

27.9% or 37 crore population comes under the above parameters all over India. Out of these 37 crores, 72% or 29 crores lives in these 9 states.

Percentage of impoverished population:

Bihar - 53%, Jharkhand - 47%, Madhya Pradesh - 41%, Chattisgarh - 37%, while

Kerela - 1.1 %

2. HUNGER

Hunger has always been the point of discussion among policymakers. Despite the enactment of the Food Security Act, 2013, there is a ground&sky difference when we look at the data of malnutrition in children.

There are 33.9% of children who are malnourished in India, while the target is 1.9%.

35% of children of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, 34% in Maharashtra, and 33% in Karnataka are malnourished.

39% of children are stunted in Gujarat.

This malnourishment leads them to deprivation of education and economic growth.

3. HEALTH

Covid-19 has efficiently exposed the health infrastructure of the country. The wide gap between the rural and urban health infrastructure is saddening. 

Right now there is a shortage of 9321 primary health centres, out of which 6722 are from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh.

Community health centres play an important role in rural areas. There are only 5183 such centres available while the need is 7820, 1949 of them belongs to the above four states.

Also, we need 46,000 more paramedical facilities in India for such a huge population. Out of these 46,000, 34000 are the need of these four states.

4. Education

The highly optimistic New Education Policy, 2020 give some rays of hope for the education sector. Its target and ambitions are looking good if the execution will be good. The promise of 6% spending of GDP didn't take place in this year's budget. The most notable part of this policy is the target of achieving 100% completion of school education and 50% enrolment in higher education by 2030. But, today's data are quite concerning.

Dropouts from school in different states:

Assam - 31%, Bihar - 28%, Gujarat - 24%, Madhya Pradesh - 25%

Kerela - 9%

5. UNEMPLOYMENT

The country becomes more optimistic towards employment during the LPG reforms back in the 1990s. But current data is contradicting the above anticipations. RBI's report on employment after the completion of 30 years the reforms tells us that unemployment has risen deeply in rural and urban areas, simultaneously.

Rise of Unemployment (per 1000 people) since the 1990s:

                                

                              1993-94                       2018-19

RURAL

India                          12                                  50

Bihar                          16                                102   

MP                                5                                  24

UP                                 7                                  43

Rajasthan                  3                                  46

URBAN 

India                          45                                 77

Bihar                          71                                105

MP                              50                                 74

UP                               29                               106 

Factories are part of Industrial development and employment generation is its byproduct for a particular area.

Population per factory:-

TamilNadu - 1869, Gujarat - 2465

Bihar - 31,300, Madhya Pradesh - 18,119, Uttar Pradesh - 14,619

CONCLUSION

These data reveal the harsh reality of microeconomic development. While we are dreaming of a $5 trillion economy by 2025, the ground reality is as deep as the grave. However, all these data are from government sources, they might be more devastating at ground level.

During the first wave of COVID-19, a huge exodus of migrant workers occurred from the rich and financially developed states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra. All this situation is a result of lower economic development and fewer job opportunities in states like Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.

Political unwillingness or corruption can also be a major reason for such a situation in Northern states which has given all major political figures in Indian Politics. 275 parliamentarians are doing less than the remaining 268. Also, subjects like Health, Education are more stressed in every aspect of development, all these subjects come under the state government. Calculated politicisation and bureaucratic intervention is the need of the hour.

In totality, a nation of 28 States and 8 Union Territories or 36 entities cannot achieve its ambitions with robust development of just 15-20 states and snail pace development of others.