This is the first in a three-part series, disseminating the observations and findings from the latest edition of Access (In)Equality Index, AEI 2024, produced by the researchers at Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), with IDEAS, O.P. Jindal Global University.
Inequality has come to be understood as the phenomenon of unequal and/or unjust distribution of resources and opportunities among members of a given society. Most of the discourse on inequality has been centered around economic inequality, particularly income or wealth inequality, thus focusing on the inequality of outcome as against ‘access’ related issues.
However, inequality goes beyond income and affects opportunities and capabilities for large parts of society. Moreover, for a large developing nation like India, deeply fragmented along the social lines of caste, class, religion and gender, it is the rising ‘access’ inequality of opportunity that merits a closer look. The creation of the Access Inequality Index was a step in that direction.
In a recent 2024 revised edition of the study undertaken by the Centre for New Economics Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University in creating AEI, we attempted to update and improvise the existing index to measure and study the state of inequality of opportunity – in terms of access to basic social and economic services – visible among households for states and Union Territories (UTs) across India.
Although “access” in general means a way of approaching, reaching or entering a place, as the right or opportunity to reach, use or visit, it is here broadly conceptualised to encompass the “4As” – availability, approachability, affordability and appropriateness.
Our index includes five fundamental pillars of assessment for states across India:
- Access to basic amenities
- Access to healthcare
- Access to education
- Access to socio-economic security
- Access to legal recourse
Composite index ranking performance
In the methodological design of the Access (In)Equality Index, we measure overall access, using geometric mean to ensure partial compensability, i.e. poor performance in one sub-index is not fully compensated by good performance in another. It also balances the uneven performance in the dimensions and encourages improvements in the weaker dimensions. In order to ensure comparability across geographical size and governance, AEI 2024 scores and ranks states and UTs separately. Based on the composite Index scores range (0.67 – 0.23), the states are grouped into three categories: Aspirants, Achievers, and Front-runners.
Front runners, states whose AEI score ranges from 0.52-0.69. These states are doing well in terms of inequality providing better equality of opportunity to their residents. Goa is the best performing state with a score of 0.69. In sub-indexes too Goa does the best in basic amenities and health. Some of the larger states in the Front runner’s category are Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Telangana.
Six of these states are in the South, two in the West, two in the North, and one in the Northeast. All the southern states make it to the group and the western states Maharashtra and Gujarat, which are front runners are closest to the South. Surprisingly no state in Central or Eastern India makes it to the front runners list. It would be interesting to understand why this is the case.
Below we break down the performance of states based on two of the pillars
Pillar I: ‘Access to basic amenities’
Basic amenities have been defined along the dimensions of clean drinking water, sanitation, clean energy, nutrition, housing and digital access. They contribute to a decent quality of life, allowing an individual (or a household) to have basic physiological capabilities and socio-economic opportunities.
Figure A shows the ranking of states on the pillar of basic amenities. Goa does best with a score of 0.97 with Punjab coming second with a score of 0.85. The worst performing state is Jharkhand with a score of 0.31. The two eastern states Bihar and Odisha are the next worst performers with a score of 0.38 and 0.39 respectively. It is interesting to note that the only other southern state in the top five states is Kerala.
Figure A: Index Score of Basic Amenities across States
The percentage of people living in pucca houses in each state indicates the extent to which people have quality housing. Goa is the best performing state in this respect with 90% of its residents having pucca houses while Manipur is the worst performing state with only 22.6% of its residents having pucca houses.
An increase in coverage of clean cooking fuels has been the government’s focus for a long now as it leads to better health indicators, especially for women of the household. Only 4% of states have coverage of more than 75%.
While we consider availability with respect to water it consists of two parts: households with piped water and households with primary source of water within the dwelling or premises. For piped water, the best performing state is Goa with a coverage of 91.9% and the worst-performing state is Assam with a coverage of 5.8%. For the primary source of water within dwelling or premises, the best performing state is again Goa with a coverage of 94.8% but the worst performing state is Odisha with a coverage of only 33.1%.
The Swachh Bharat Mission has played a critical role in access to sanitation 50% of states have a coverage of more than 95%. Another major initiative is the National Food Security Act. This is the best-performing sub-indicator as far as the Indian states are concerned. Many states have a coverage of 100% including one of the worst-performing states (overall) Bihar.
In today’s era, digital access has become an important aspect of measuring inequality. It is defined on three pillars particularly: Percentage of male internet users, percentage of female internet users, and percentage of mobile users. The best performing state for female internet users is Sikkim (76.7%), for male internet users is Punjab (78.2%), and for mobile users is Odisha (73%). The worst performing state for female internet users is Bihar (20.6%), for male internet users is again Bihar (35.4%), and for mobile users is Telangana (46.9%). Clearly, the penetration of mobile is greater than the internet owing to lower capital costs and infrastructural requirements. The gender divide is also visible in internet users with less coverage of female users perhaps due to lesser economic independence, social barriers, and less education.
Pillar II: ‘Access to health’
India’s healthcare system despite being one of the largest sectors in terms of employment and revenue generation, health outcomes for most of the population have not improved. It is important to understand that health outcomes such as life expectancy and mortality rate depend on the available means in health facilities.
Figure B shows the ranking of states on the pillar of Health. Goa does best with a score of 0.70 with Andhra Pradesh coming second with a score of 0.66. The worst-performing state is Bihar with a score of 0.34.
To capture state-level performance on access to healthcare, we identified the following sub-indicators: reproductive health, health insurance, immunization, government hospitals and beds, population and area covered by sub-centres, teleconsultation funds and public expenditure.
Figure B: Index Score of Health across States
The public health expenditure per 1,000 population is particularly low in Bihar, UP, MP, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. On the other hand, the average public expenditure allocated per 1,000 population is highest in Goa, followed by Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
In terms of hospitals available for a population of 1,000 Himachal Pradesh performed exceptionally well followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Similarly, the availability of government hospital beds per 1,000 population is as low as 0.00 in Bihar and as high as 1.0 in Mizoram.
While these figures reflect the availability of healthcare facilities, their approachability is measured from the average radial distance covered by sub-centres that act as the most peripheral healthcare contact for outreach communities.
Reproductive and child healthcare indicators have improved over the years yet remain unsatisfactory. Only 76% of children in India receive full immunization during the first year of their life. Nagaland, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan have the least immunisation coverage.
In 2021, on average, 65.5% of mothers had received postnatal care from a healthcare personnel within 2 days of delivery and 56% received at least 4 antenatal care visits. All the factors combined lead to Northeastern states ranking poorly in this pillar.
Our next part in the series will showcase findings from the Index made across the remaining three pillars: Access to education, Access to Socio-Economic Security and Access to Legal Recourse for states-UTs across India.
Siddhartha Bhasker is an Associate Professor of Economics at Jindal Global Business School and a contributing researcher for CNES and IDEAS, O.P. Jindal Global University. Aditi Desai is a Senior Research Analyst, CNES and the Team Lead for InfoSphere, CNES, O.P. Jindal Global University. Deepanshu Mohan is a Professor of Economics, Director, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES) and Dean, IDEAS, O.P. Jindal Global University. He is currently Visiting Professor of Economics, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE, and 2024 Academic Fall Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford.
The authors thank Ms. Aparajita from Springer Nature, Dr. Arun Kumar Kaushik for their constant guidance, insights, reviewer comments that went into the revised edition of the Index Study. We also thank Dr Maitreesh Ghatak, Dr. Neelanjan Sircar, Mr. Roshan Kishore for previous comments/inputs on the AEI index, when created in 2021. Additional Research credits assigned to Aryan Govindkrishnan, Jheel Doshi and Bhanavi Behl for their assistance in the research of the revised report.
