India's march towards SDGs anchored in investing in human capital, inclusive growth: Eco Survey

NEW DELHI: India's development trajectory is critically linked with investments in social infrastructure and the country's march towards attaining Sustainable Development Goals is firmly anchored in investing in human capital and inclusive growth, the Economic Survey 2019-20 said. To reap the benefits of demographic dividend, the government is committed to improve the outcomes in education and skilling, and to provide employment and affordable healthcare to all, as per the survey tabled in Parliament on Friday.

"India's march towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is firmly anchored in investing in human capital and inclusive growth," Economic Survey 2019-20 said.

Scaling up development programmes for improving connectivity, providing housing and bridging gender gaps in socio-economic indicators is of paramount importance for sustainable development.


It stated that the public investments in social infrastructure like education, health, housing and connectivity have a critical role in ensuring inclusive development in a developing country like India.

"The 17 SDGs and 169 targets envisaged in the Agenda 2030, are closely interrelated with social infrastructure," it said.

With the underlying dimensions of education and health embedded in SDGs, the improvement in Human Development Index (HDI) is also interlinked to SDGs as evidenced in the correlation between SDG rankings and HDI rankings of the states.

The 2030 Agenda for sustainable development calls for global partnership to ensure peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.

It is recognised that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality and spur economic growth in a sustainable manner, the survey said.

India is committed to achieve these SDGs and a strong social infrastructure is key to achieve them, it said, adding that the government has been focusing on provisioning of assets such as schools, institutes of higher learning, hospitals, access to sanitation, water supply, road connectivity, affordable housing, skills and livelihood opportunities.

This gains significance given the fact that India is home to the world's youngest population as half of its population is below the age of 25.