Covid’s medium-term impact and India’s Human Development Index loss

Source– The post is based on the article “Covid’s medium-term impact and India’s Human Development Index loss” published in The Business Standard on 10th September 2022.

Syllabus: GS2- Issues related with development and management of social sector

News- The article explains the loss in India’s Human Development Index score in 2020 and 2021.

What are some facts related to the HDI report?

There are setbacks on the life expectancy and education front.

Life expectancy could recover the loss of two years, if we take into account the death toll due to COVID19, but getting back to previous level on the education front is difficult.

Slide on index depends on whether countries withstood Covid better or not.

How does India performed in comparison to other countries?

Bangladesh- Its position is better on non-economic indicators. It has lower income but better overall index score. It did not suffer any setback in HDI indicators during Covid years.

Other developing countries- Vietnam belong to the “high” human development category and Malaysia belongs to the “Very high” attainment category. For India, it will take  till 2030 to move from medium to high, if it improves its indicators at pre-Covid rate.

India index is roughly where China was at the turn of the century.

What needs to be done?

There is a need to close the gap with regard to health and education. In this context, Amartya Sen approach of development as capability building should be followed.

There is a lack of public spending on health and education. Private spending is more in comparison to public spending  and there are regional variations as Bimaru states continue to languish. It needs to be corrected.

Recent initiatives of the government like health insurance should make a difference but these are not enough.

When it comes to public spending, government preference is more for physical infrastructure rather than social infrastructure. It needs to have a relook. Investment on physical infrastructure has gone up to 1% of GDP in recent years.