SDG 5: Only 3 States get 50 plus marks on Gender Equality in Niti Aayog’s SDG Index 2019

Niti Aayog has recently released an SDG Index 2019 based on 16 out of 17 Global Goals set up by the United Nations for year 2030.

The poor performance of India on the front of gender equality has been established in SDG Index 2019, a report recently released by the Niti Aayog. In the report, only three states could score over 50 points. Interestingly, Jammu and Kashmir has been provided the highest score of 53 followed by 52 to Himachal Pradesh and 51 to Kerala.

In the report, the Aayog has divided the states into four categories. The states securing a score between 0 to 49 has been put in the category of 'aspirant' while those getting between 50 to 64 will be 'performer'. A state will require to score between 65 to 99 to get the status of front runner while those getting above 99 would be categorized as 'achiever'. In the SDG Index 2019, rest of all states and union territories of India have been put in the lowest category of 'aspirant'.

Interestingly, national capital city Delhi is at the bottom among Union Territories on SDG5 while Chandigarh is on 3rd rank. Furthermore, the score of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh increased from 39 in 2018 to 53 in 2019 while Chandigarh and Delhi both scores less in comparison to 2018. The score of Delhi on Gender Equality fell from 37 in 2018 to 47 in 2019 while in Chandigarh it went down from 51 to 47.

Among the states, Uttar Pradesh improved its score on SDG5 from 27 in 2018 to 41 in 2019 and Bihar improved from 24 to 40. The states which show improvement on the Niti Aayog's SDG Index 2019 are Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Goa, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. Nagaland is the only state where the score was the same in both the indexes. However, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram, Odisha, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura and Telangana witnessed a decline.