The Hindu : National : India one notch up in its Human Development Index

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Friday, Nov 10, 2006
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India one notch up in its Human Development Index

Gargi Parsai

UNDP says it is not a comprehensive measure The poor are getting systematically excluded from access to water by their poverty

NEW DELHI: India has improved its rank one notch in the Human Development Index (HDI) value in the United Nations' Development Programme Report for 2006, released here on Thursday. India is ranked 126 against a total of 177 countries, going up one rank as compared to last year. The HDI for India is 0.611, which gives India a rank of 126th out of 177 countries with data.

Amongst South Asian countries India ranks third after Sri Lanka and Maldives but above Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal. The HDI measures the average progress of a country in human development. The indicators taken into account are education, health and income.

However, in the Human Poverty Index (HPI-1) value for developing countries, India ranks 55th among 102 developing countries for which the index has been calculated. The HPI-1 value for India is 31.3, which ranks 55th. Here too, India ranks third amongst South Asian countries after Maldives and Sri Lanka but is placed above Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The HPI-1 focuses on the proportion of people below a threshold level in the same dimensions of human development as the human development index — living a long and healthy life, having access to education and a decent standard of living.

Releasing the report in the presence of Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz, U.N. Resident Representative and U.N. Resident Coordinator in India Maxine Olson said the data was 18 months old and refers to 2004.

This year's theme is "Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis."

Norway tops

Norway, Iceland and Australia are among the top three in HDI, while Mali, Sierra Leone and Niger rank 175th, 176th and 177th.

The HDI looks beyond the Gross Domestic Product to broader definition of wellbeing. It provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development which include living a long and healthy life (measures by life expectancy), being educated (being measured by adult literacy and enrolment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, income).

The index, however, is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development, says the UNDP.

It does not, for example include important indicators such as inequality and difficult to measure indicators like respect for human rights and political freedoms.

"What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being," it says.

With reference to the theme, the report notes that the poor were getting systematically excluded from access to water by their poverty, limited legal rights and public policies that limit access to the infrastructure that provides water for life and for livelihoods.

The 1.8 million child deaths each year related to unclean water and poor sanitation dwarf the casualties associated with violent conflict.

Dr. Olson said water scarcity the world over was due to unequal distribution, skewed access to infrastructure, poverty, unequal power relationships and poor water management of policies. What were required were more resources into water and sanitation and political will.

Reiterating the government commitment on water and sanitation front, Mr. Soz said the challenge was to invest in areas that not only addressed augmentation of supply and improvement of quality but also lead to greater equity and access to the poor.

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