Assam halfway in achieving human development goals, finds HDR

Human Development Index of state is at 0.557; Kamrup Metro right on top, Jorhat is next; Hailakandi at the bottom

The overall level of human development in the state of Assam has shown “steady” and “continuous” improvement over the last 15 years, found the second Human Development Report (HDR) of Assam, prepared in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The Assam HDR report 2014, which was released here on Monday, puts the overall Human Development Index (HDI) for the state of Assam at 0.557, indicating that the level of overall human development in the state is just about half the desired level.
It has been observed that the achievements in all three key dimensions of human development -– education, health and income -– are just halfway with education just being at about two-thirds.

The district ranking based on the values of overall HDI puts Kamrup Metro at the top (with a value of HDI 0.703) followed by Jorhat (HDI 0.655). The lowest value has been obtained in the district of Hailakandi (HDI 0.437).

The report categorically underlines redressal of various inequalities to improve human development outcomes in the state. The report also found that overall human development of women, in general, was lower than that of men by some 14 per cent.
The report says that about one-third of the population in the state is ‘multi-dimensionally poor’, that is poor in more than one way. The total unemployment rate (per centage of people within the age of 15-59 years finding no employment) is estimated at 13.4 per cent. The female unemployment rate is found to be 33.9 per cent compared to 8 per cent in the case of males.

The first such Human Development Report for Assam was published a more than a decade back in 2003.

The state government also today released a vision document today which lays down the roadmap to achieve 17 sustainable development goals and 169 targets adopted by the United Nations in Assam by 2030. One of the goals of the vision document is to eradicate poverty  from 27.3 per cent (in 2015) to 0 per cent by 2030. The vision document also lays down the target to end hunger by 2030 and malnutrition by 2025. It has also set the targets to achieve reduction of maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to less than 70 per 10,000 live births, neo-natal mortality to at least 12 per 1,000 live births, under 5 years mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births by 2030.