Human Development Index

Technical Note: Human Development Index (2018 Update)
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of achievements in three key
dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent
standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three
dimensions.
HDI = (IHealth x IEducation x IIncome) 1/3

Human development rankings are released by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP).
Method of Calculating HDI:

Step I: Calculate Dimension Index for health, education and income
Step II: Calculate the geometric mean of the individual dimension Index for health, education
and income.
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TECHNICAL NOTE: Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical Update
India ranks 129 on 2019 Human Development Index
India’s HDI value for 2018 is 0.647, which put the country in the medium human
development category− positioning it at 129 out of 189 countries and territories.
2
Steady progress made by India in improving its HDI value
The Government of India is committed to improve the quality of life for all its people.
The success of India’s national development schemes like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao,
Swachh Bharat, Make in India, and initiatives aimed at universalizing sc hool
education and health care, will be crucial in ensuring that the upward trend on human
development accelerates and also achieve the Prime Minister’s vision of development
for all and the key principle of the Sustainable Development Goals -- to leave no one
behind.
Sustaining and improving the quality of life will depend on policies crafted to handle major
emerging challenges such as urbanisation, the housing deficit, access to power, water,
education and health care. Moreover, it is necessary to ensure the rise in fiscal revenues from
all sources should go towards making public education of high standards accessible to all and
delivering on the promised higher budgetary outlay for health care.
Reasons for India’s low HDI scores
26.8 percent of India’s HDI value is lost on account of inequalities.
Significant inequalities persist, particularly between States and regions (rural-urban),

which act as major barriers to improvement. This confirms that inequality remains a
challenge for India as it progresses economically, though the Government of India and
various state governments have, through a variety of social protection measures,
attempted to ensure that the gains of economic development are shared widely and
reach the farthest first.
Key source of inequality within countries is the gap in opportunities, achievements

and empowerment between women and men. Women’s empowerment remains a
particular challenge.
Global labour force participation rates for women are lower than for men
Unemployment rates of women are higher than their male counterparts. Women
globally also do much more unpaid domestic and care work than men.
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Overall, women’s share of parliamentary seats remains low. Violence against
women affects all societies, and in some regions childhood marriage and high
adolescence birth rates undermine the opportunities for many young women and girls
These challenges are also evident in India, where despite considerable progress at the
policy and legislative levels, women remain significantly less politically,
economically and socially empowered than men.
Steps which can be instrumental in realising the dream of India finding a

place within the top slots of HDI may be as following:
1. Investment Freedom: Overcoming hurdles or limitations in the way of investment in the
social sector is of crucial importance. More investment is needed in areas such as education,
health, infrastructure etc. Along with this, streamlining traditional approach
of generating new sources of revenue generation, steps like rationalised targeting of
subsidies, judicious use of revenues meant for social sector development etc. will probably go
a long way in meeting the challenges in this regard.
2. Performance evaluation: Effective performance evaluation of the projects and activities

engaged in the social sector development through innovative methods like outcome
budgeting, social auditing of the programmes and meaningful participation of community
members from the policy-making level to policy evaluation has been known to yield positive
results. The rise in revenues from all sources should go towards making public education of
high standards accessible to all and delivering on the promised higher budgetary outlay for
health care.
3. Reducing Inequality: Inequality in different forms - social, economic and political is the
key factor affecting the ranking in HDI. India, though, has made enormous efforts to remove
all kinds of inequalities but is yet to get desired results. In this regard, rampant corruption in
the delivery of services and lack of coordination between agencies has played a major role
which needs to be corrected on the urgent basis.
4. Governance reforms: Adoption of new managerial techniques along with adherence to

the principals of ‘Good Governance’ will bring about comprehensive reforms thus removing
the impediments afflicting the real development of the country.
5. Innovative solutions: A greater thrust on research and development essential to chalk out
innovative policies and programmes for dealing with new developmental challenges should
be the core area of concern for the government as the task of real growth and challenges
demand innovative and profound solutions.

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Technical Note: Human Development Index (2018 Update)

HDI = (IHealth x IEducation x IIncome) 1/3

Method of Calculating HDI:

Reasons for India’s low HDI scores

26.8 percent of India’s HDI value is lost on account of inequalities.

Significant inequalities persist, particularly between States and regions (rural-urban),

Key source of inequality within countries is the gap in opportunities, achievements

Steps which can be instrumental in realising the dream of India finding a

2. Performance evaluation: Effective performance evaluation of the projects and activities

4. Governance reforms: Adoption of new managerial techniques along with adherence to

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