Question

Kerala with lower per capita income has a better human develment ranking than punjab hence per capita income is not a useful criterion at all and should not of used to compare states

Answer 1

Kerala, with lower per capita income has a better human development ranking than Punjab. However, it would be wrong to say that per capita income is not a useful criterion at all. Per capita income is certainly not the only criterion and it has its limitations. But this does not imply that it is not useful at all. To counter the inadequacy of this average, the human development index is used. The human development index uses a combination of development factors (such as health, education, income) for comparison. Thus, per capita income is one of the development factors, and cannot be done away with. Also, per capita income is useful for comparing the money index of states.

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.