India's overall SDG score on national index up in 2023-24 at 71: NITI Aayog report

India’s overall score on the national Sustainable Development Goal Index, prepared by NITI Aayog, stood at 71 in 2023-24 compared to 66 in 2020-21 with significant progress on eliminating poverty, providing decent work, economic growth, climate action and life on earth.

India’s score was 60 in 2019-20 and 57 in 2018 which was the baseline report.

“Targeted intervention by the government has helped India achieve significant improvements across 16 goals set under the SDGs,” NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam said.

“India is not only on track but also ahead of others in achieving most of the targets under SDGs,” he said, adding that the government hopes to achieve targets across some of these goals even before 2030.

As per the index, released by the Aayog on Friday, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa and Himachal Pradesh emerged as the top performing states in the overall score.

On the contrary, Bihar, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh being the laggard states were placed at the bottom of the index.

Among the union territories, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Delhi were the top five performers.

As per the report, scores for different states range from 57 to 79 in 2023-24, a substantial improvement from the 2018 when the range was from 42 to 69.

While significant progress has been recorded in Goal 1 (no poverty), Goal 8 (decent work and economic growth), Goal 13 (climate action) and Goal 15 (life on land), Goal 13 (climate action) records highest increase in score from 54 in 2020-21 to 67 in 2023-24 followed by Goal 1 (no poverty) from 60 to 72.

The index shows that out of the 16 goals, India’s overall score is below 50 only on Goal 5 (gender equality) which means the Centre will have to make targeted interventions to improve gender equality in India.

According to the report, key interventions by the government that helped India improve SDGs include construction of over 4 crore houses under the PM Awas Yojana (PMAY), 11 crore toilets and 2.23 lakh community sanitary complexes in rural areas, giving 10 crore LPG connections under PM Ujjwala Yojana and providing tap water connections in over 14.9 crore households under Jal Jeevan Mission.

Besides, the Ayushman Bharat -Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana benefitted over 30 crore people while 80 crore people benefitted under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and direct benefit transfer of Rs 34 lakh crore was made through PM-Jan Dhan accounts.

SDG India Index 2023-24 measures and tracks national progress of all States and UTs on 113 indicators aligned to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation’s (MoSPI) National Indicator Framework (NIF). The SDG India Index computes goal-wise scores on the 16 SDGs for each State and UT.