Question

Kerala, with lower per capita income has a better human development ranking than punjab. Hence, per capita income is not a useful criterion at all and should not be used to compare states. Do youagree discuss

Answer 1

Yes, I agree that money income or per capita income is not the only factor. Factors like Infant Mortality Rate, Literacy Rate and Net Attendance ratio are also very crucial for overall human development. In these factors Kerala is better than Punjab.

(a) Infant Mortality Rate in Kerala was 11 as compared to 49 in Punjab (in the year 2003).
(b) Literacy Rate (%) was 91 in Kerala as compared to 70 in Punjab (in the year 2001)
(c) Net Attendance Ratio from class I to V was 91 in Kerala as compared to 81 in Punjab (in 1995-96).
Due to these advantages, Kerala has a better human development ranking than Punjab, in spite of lower per capita income.

Answer 2

No, I do not agree with the statement that per capita income is not a useful criterion at all. Kerala, with lower per capita income has a better human development ranking than Maharashtra because, human development ranking is determined using a combination of factors such as health, education, and income. So, this does not imply that per capita income is not useful. Rather, per capita income is one of the development factors and can not be neglected. The World Bank uses per capita income as the criterion for measuring development and comparing states. But this criterion has certain limitations because of which determination of Human Development Index (HDI) is done using this criterion along with some other development factors like health, education etc. If the rate of population growth, is higher than the rate of growth of national income, this will lead to fall in per capita availability of goods and services and economic welfare.