Political Economy of Development in India

Paper Code: MAPX – 401

Assignment

Topic: Comparative Analysis of

Development Indicators in
BIMARU States and High Performing States of India

Presented to
Dr. S.R.T.P Raju

By
Lakshya Mittal
MAPA 4th Semester
February, 2022
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Index

1. Introduction ……………………...………………………………………….. 2

1.1. Understanding Development Indicators ...……………………..… 2

1.2. BIMARU States ………………………………………….……….. 3

2. Outline of the Paper ………………………………………………………… 4

2.1. States Under Analysis ...…………………………………….……. 4

2.2. Data Used …………………………………………………………. 4

3. Report Findings …………………………………………………………….. 5

3.1. NITI Aayog Health Index ……………………………………….. 5

3.2. SDF Index 2020-21 ………………………………………………. 8

4. Report Analysis …………………………………………………...………. 10

5. Conclusion …………………………………………………………...……. 13

6. References …………………………………………………………………. 13
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Introduction

 Understanding Development Indicators

In this era of globalization, nuclear wealth and modern technology, Nation

States are engaged in a race towards Development. Along with them, India too,
with its socio-economic potential, is a powerful contender.

Traditionally development has been associated with economic growth, i.e.,

measuring economic output. Universal consensus has been that countries
become richer and hence more advanced. Modern interpretation is that
development cannot simply be measured in economic terms. An account
should also be taken of the quality of people’s lives i.e. a social measurement
that includes measurement of living standards, access to clean water,
education, nutrition, etc.

This is where indicators of development come into picture. They are used to
illustrate progress of a country in meeting a range of economic, social, and
environmental goals.

There are hundreds of economic, political and social indicators of

development, ranging from ‘Hard’ economic indicators such as Gross National
Income (and all its variations), to various poverty and economic inequality
indicators, to the Sustainable Development Goals, which focus much more on
social indicators of development such as education and health, all the way
down to much more subjective development indicators such as happiness.

In this paper, I consider Health and Sustainable Development Goals as

indicators of development as provided by NITI Aayog Reports 2020-2021 to
provide a comparative analysis between BIMARU states and high performing
states of India. For this, I will first put forward a background on BIMARU
states.
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 BIMARU States in India:

By BIMARU states, we mean the Indian states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh,

Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. The term was coined by Ashish Bose in the mid-
1980s. BIMARU has a resemblance to a Hindi word ‘bīmār’ meaning "sick".

This acronym was used to refer to the poor economic conditions within those
states. Several studies, including those by the UN, showed that the
performance of the BIMARU states was dragging down the  GDP growth rate
of India. During the period of 2008-2011, some of these states started to
develop faster than some of the major states and the concept of BIMARU was
being considered to be outdated. 1 However in the recent years, this concept has
reemerged due to faltering growth rates of the states. 2

In recent times some of these states have seen real push in terms of economic
growth. Although, some of these states have experienced high growth rates,
they still lag other more progressive states. Bihar's GSDP grew by 80% over
the period 2006-2007, which was higher than in the past 2 years and one of the
highest recorded by the Government of India for that period. They have laid
greater emphasis on education and learning by appointing more teachers and
opening a software park. People from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh contribute
significantly to ARMY, C.I.S.F, B.S.F, N.S.G, I.A.F and many other Para
military forces because of their large young population in India. Recently these
states are working for their improvement by developing infrastructures, IT-
parks and giving a better invitation to the businessmen for investment.
Also Madhya Pradesh enlisted at second position in U.N.O. GDP development
ranking's with a record of 225% 3

1
"Don't call them Bimaru states now". hindustantimes.com. July 19, 2010. Archived from the original on
2011-04-08.
2
"BIMARU redux: NITI Aayog CEO says Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan keeping India
backward". The Financial Express. 2018-04-24. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
3
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-07-24. Retrieved 2015-01-07.
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Outline of the Paper:

 States under analysis:

As stated above, the comparative analysis is between the BIMARU states

and High performing states.

The present-day states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were

part of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, respectively, at the time
the BIMARU acronym was coined. For the sake of a comprehensive
analysis, I will look at the performances of these states as well.

Thus, the states under inspection are - Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Tamil Nadu
and Telangana.

 Data Used:

This comparative analysis is based on the reports of NITI Aayog, namely-

1. Healthy States Progressive India Report On The Ranks Of States And

Union Territories, Health Index Round IV 2019-20 4

This report provides incremental performance in health outcomes and status,

and ranks states and Union Territories on their year-on-year incremental
performance in health outcomes as well as their overall condition. The index is
being compiled and published since 2017. The reports aim to nudge states/UTs
towards building robust health systems and improving service delivery.

2. SDG INDIA Index & Dashboard 2020-21 Partnerships in the Decade of

Action, Third Edition. 5

The SDG India Index 2020–21 is developed in collaboration with the United

Nations in India to monitor the country’s progress on the goals through data-
driven assessment, and foster a competitive spirit among the States and Union
Territories in achieving them. NITI Aayog has the twin mandate to oversee the
adoption and monitoring of the SDGs in the country, and also promote
competitive and cooperative federalism among States and UTs.

4
https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2021-12/NITI-WB_Health_Index_Report_24-12-21.pdf
5
https://www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/SDG_3.0_Final_04.03.2021_Web_Spreads.pdf
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Report Findings:

 NITI Aayog Health Index:

The Health Index is a weighted composite score incorporating 24 indicators

covering key aspects of health performance. Health Index comprises of select
indicators in three domains:

The indicators are selected on the basis of their importance and availability of
reasonably reliable data at least annually from existing data sources such as the
Sample Registration System (SRS), Civil Registration System (CRS) and
Health Management Information Systems (HMIS).

A robust and acceptable mechanism is used for measuring performance. Data

is collected online through a portal maintained by NITI on agreed indicators.
The data is then validated through an independent validation agency selected
through a transparent bidding process. The validated data sheets are shared
with the states for verification, followed by video conferences with the states
for resolving any disagreements or disputes. The final sheets thus settled are
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shared with the states, and after agreement, the data is finalized and used for
analysis and report-writing.

‘States are beginning to take cognizance of indices such as the State Health
Index and use them in their policymaking and resource allocation. This report
is an example of both competitive and cooperative federalism,’ said VC Dr
Rajiv Kumar.

Notably, the 4th Health Index Round does not capture the impact of Covid-19
on health outcomes or any of the other indicators as the Index Performance
relates to Base Year (2018-19) and Reference Year (2019-20), largely the pre-
Covid-19 period.

The report was divided into three parts – larger states, smaller states and union
territories for generating ranks and ensuring comparability among entities. For
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the purpose of this paper, we only need to look at the data for the larger states
as the states under analysis in this paper fall under this category together.

 Among the larger states, Kerala was ranked as the best performer, while
Uttar Pradesh was the worst.
 Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana are the top three, which means for
four times in a row Kerala has emerged the best in overall health
performance.
 Bihar and Madhya Pradesh were the second-and third-worst performers,
respectively.
 Notably, Uttar Pradesh has shown the highest incremental performance
between 2018-19 and 2019-20.
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 SDG India Index 2020-21

The NITI Aayog launched its index in 2018 to monitor the country’s progress

on the goals through data-driven assessment, and foster a competitive spirit
among the States and Union Territories in achieving them. NITI Aayog has
the twin mandate to oversee the adoption and monitoring of the SDGs in the
country, and also promote competitive and cooperative federalism among
States and UTs.

In this regard, the SDG India Index computes goal-wise scores on the 16

SDGs for each State and Union Territory. These scores range between 0–
100, and if a State/UT achieves a score of 100, it signifies it has achieved the
2030 targets.

The higher the score of a State/UT, the greater the distance to target achieved.
States and Union Territories are classified in four categories based on their
SDG India Index score: Aspirant (0–49), Performer (50–64), Front-
Runner (65-99), Achiever (100).
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The SDG India Index 2020–21 is more robust than the previous editions on
account of wider coverage of targets and indicators with greater alignment
with the National Indicator Framework (NIF).

 The 115 indicators incorporate 16 out of 17 SDGs, with a qualitative

assessment on Goal 17, and cover 70 SDG targets. This is
an improvement over the 2018–19 and 2019–20 editions of the index,
which had utilized 62 indicators across 39 targets and 13 Goals, and
100 indicators across 54 targets and 16 Goals, respectively.
 Kerala retained its position at the top of the rankings in the third edition
of the index, with a score of 75, followed by Tamil Nadu and Himachal
Pradesh, both scoring 72.
 At the other end of the scale, Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam were the
worst performing States. However, all States showed some improvement
from last year’s scores, with Mizoram and Haryana seeing the biggest
gains.
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Report Analysis:

In the NITI Aayog Health Index, the performance of BIMARU states is quite
promising in terms of exceeding bare minimum expectations. The gap in the
Overall Performance between the best and the worst performing Larger States
narrowed down. Among the Larger States, Kerala was at the top with the Index
Score of 82.20 and Uttar Pradesh at the bottom with the Index Score of 30.57,
in the Reference Year (2019-20). The gap between the best and worst
performing Larger States was 56.54 points in Base Year (2018-19) which
decreased to 51.63 points in the Reference Year (2019-20).

The highest observed Overall Index Score of 82.20 is for Kerala, followed by
72.42 for Tamil Nadu, 69.96 for Telangana and 69.95 for Andhra Pradesh
which is quite a distance from the frontier (100 points), the performance of
BIMARU states is quite promising in terms of exceeding bare minimum
expectations in this regard.
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The incremental changes in Health Index Scores from Base Year (2018-19) to
Reference Year (2019-20) varied significantly across states with a vast
majority of Larger States registering at least some improvement. Among the
Larger States, Telangana, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra
Pradesh showed strong Overall Performance and also registered improvements
in Incremental Performance. Assam and Uttar Pradesh, though among the
bottom one-third performers in Overall Performance, did exceedingly well in
Incremental Performance recording the highest progress from Base Year
(2018-19) to the Reference Year (2019-20). Rajasthan was the weakest
performer both in terms of Overall Performance and Incremental Performance.

Among the Larger States, Telangana is the only state that demonstrated strong
Overall Performance as well as Incremental Performance while Rajasthan
reported weak performance on both counts. Telangana emerged as strong
performer on both Overall and Incremental Performance as for several
indicators it had attained the best possible performance.

With regards to SDG, the country’s overall SDG score improved by 6 points

- from 60 in 2019 to 66 in 2020–21. India saw significant  improvement in the
SDGs related to clean energy, urban development and health in
2020. However, there has been a major decline in the areas of industry,
innovation and infrastructure as well as decent work and economic growth.

Kerala retained its position at the top of the rankings in the third edition of the
index, with a score of 75, followed by Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, both
scoring 72.
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At the other end of the scale, Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam were the worst
performing States. The BIMARU states were not one of the improving states in
this report.

From this, an inference can be made that the BIMARU states, although not
officially known by the name, still live up to its negative reputation in terms
of overall performance. This is evident from their state rankings in both NITI
Aayog reports. Rajasthan is in point of fact is the last state to finish the SDG
report. The only exception has been of Uttar Pradesh in regards to
Incremental Development.

Although appearing bleak, this performance by Uttar Pradesh gives a glimmer

of hope for the future of the BIMARU states. As several states are significantly
better in one domain, this suggests that there is a scope to improve their
performance in the other domains with specific targeted interventions. For
instance, 47% of the States showed the highest performance in health
outcomes and governance and information domains.
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Conclusion

This study shows that the performance of BIMARU states has enhanced but
there is still plenty room for improvement if they want to compete with the
likes of high-performing states such as Kerala and Telangana. With regards to
the validity of the acronym BIMARU, it appears that these states have a long
way ahead of them in terms of infrastructure and overall development.

Also, the NITI Aayog reports have become an annual tool to assess the
performance of states and Union Territories. This report is an example of
both competitive and cooperative federalism. It is set to play a major role
in prompting States towards improvements in health outcomes . The importance
of this annual tool was re-emphasized by the ministry’s decision to link the
index to incentives under the National Health Mission. States are beginning to
take cognizance of indices such as the State Health Index and use them  in their
performance evaluation, policymaking and resource allocation. The index has
been instrumental in shifting the focus from budget spending and inputs to
outputs and outcomes, thus solidifying the importance of development
indicators as a guide and a tool for self-improvement.

References:

1. Byres, T J (ed.). The State and Development Planning In India. OUP,

1994.
2. https://www.niti.gov.in/documents/reports
3. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1785506