India shows progress on SDG, challenges remain

India has made significant progress on key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including poverty reduction, social protection, and maternal mortality ratio, but challenges remain, a progress report released on Sunday showed.

Social protection coverage in the country has expanded to 64.3% of the population as of 2025 from 48.8% in 2022 and 22% in 2016, according to the SDG National Indicator Framework (NIF) Progress Report 2025.

This indicator comes under SDG 1 of end poverty.

The proportion of people living in poverty declined to 14.96% in 2019-21 from 24.85% in 2015-16, said the report released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on the occasion of the 19th Statistics Day.

Coverage under the National Food Security Act, 2013, expanded to 99% of the eligible population in 2024-25, compared to 95.2% in 2015-16.

All this mark a significant improvement in the country's poverty metrics. On health indicators, the maternal mortality ratio declined to 93 per lakh live births in 2019-21 from 130 in 2014-16. Sanitation goals have also seen strong growth, with 100% districts now declared open defecation free (ODF) and access to a toilet facility across rural and urban areas.

The Gini coefficient of household expenditure, which measures the degree of inequality among all sections of consumers, decreased to 0.237 in 2023-24 from 0.283 in 2011-12 in rural areas. For urban areas, it decreased to 0.284 in 2023-24 from 0.363 in 2011-12. "This shows a clear move toward more equal spending and reduced income inequality across both regions," the ministry noted. However, "significant challenges continue to persist" in some sectors, the ministry noted.

Over half of regular wage/salaried employees in the non-agriculture sector are without any social security benefit.

Foreign direct investment (FDI), as a share of gross national income (GNI), declined to its lowest at 0.5% in 2024-25. It was 0.75% in 2023-24 and 2.16% in 2015-16.

Similarly, the volume of remittances as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) also declined over the years to 2.4% in 2024-25.

Manufacturing value added as a proportion of GDP was 15.7% in 2024-25 compared to 16.8% in 2015-16.

The NIF serves as the backbone for monitoring SDGs at the national level, providing guidance to policymakers and the implementing agencies of various schemes and programs, the ministry said.

It tracks 284 indicators across 17 SDGs.

At present, 29 states have a monitoring framework that supports the achievement of SDGs. Data shows that 62 central ministries and 35 states/union territories have a gender budget cell.