Muslims, SC/ STs gained most: HDI report

India's Human Development Index (HDI) showed an impressive gain of 21% between 1999-2000 and 2007-08 with the Muslims and the backwards catching up with others on socio-economic indicators even though the gap was still very big. Chetan Chauhan reports. Human Development Index 2011

Updated on: Oct 22, 2011, 03:15:47 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India's Human Development Index (HDI) showed an impressive gain of 21% between 1999-2000 and 2007-08 with the Muslims and the backwards catching up with others on socio-economic indicators even though the gap was still very big.

A Planning Commission report released a day before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is meeting of chief ministers to decide on plan approach for next five years (12th plan) says the Muslims and Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) were converging on health and education outcomes at a faster rate with the national average, especially during last six years.

The report also said that Gujarat, described as epitome for development by BJP, had highest incidence of malnutrition among Muslim, SC and ST women and was ranked 13 out of 17 states on hunger index, below much poorer Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam.

"Inspite of high economic growth Gujarat fares the worst in terms of overall hunger index among high per capita income states," said Santosh Mehrotra, Director-General of the plan panel's Institute of Applied Manpower Research.

The report findings had panel's deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia beaming who said it presents a "nice picture" and said inclusiveness was multi-dimensional and the report clearly shows how "growth has helped to reduce poverty".

Mehrotra agreed but his alarm was that the number of poor has come down by just 19 million since 1973-74 --- when poverty was measured for the first time in India --- to be around 302 million in 2004-05.

The report said poverty among SC and ST remain much higher than the national average, an area of concern for policy makers. On the brighter note, the report said these backward sections, considered lowest on ten socio-economic indicators such as monthly spending, infant and maternal mortality rate and fertility rate, were converging with the national average on six of these indicators.

"Fertility rate among Muslim women had witnessed maximum dip among different social groups and higher share of Muslim infants compared to national average lived beyond their first birth day," the report having special focus on Muslims among different religious groups said.

Over 55 % of Muslims, SC and STs live in poorest HDI score states --- Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal --- who have gained the most from "social inclusion through economic growth".

"The average growth of most of these states has been above the national GDP growth rate suggesting convergence over time in terms of economic growth," the report said. Maximum progress these states have made is enrollment of children in schools and increase in per capita income.

Child malnutrition, termed as a "puzzle" by Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh, was an exception to this social inclusion phenomenon with children in 17 of 35 Indian states having higher malnourishment rate than in Sub-Saharan Africa.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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