The Hindu
BANGALORE: Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday released the second Karnataka Human Development Report 2005. The first report was released in 1999 when J.H. Patel was the Chief Minister.
According to the report, the State now ranks seventh in the country in the Human Development and sixth in the Gender Development Index (GDI).
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite index comprising life expectancy, educational attainment and per capita real GDP. The GDI measures the same variables as the HDI but this index is gender sensitive.
In district-wise HDI rankings, Bangalore Urban secures the top position (up from fourth in 1999) and Raichur's position remains unchanged at 27.
After Bangalore Urban, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Kodagu and Shimoga are the top ranking districts.
Gulbarga, Chamarajanagar, Koppal and Bijapur rank as the districts with the lowest HDI after Raichur.
At the international level, Karnataka does better than India. In HDI, the State's position is at 120 while that of India is 127 (0.621). In GDI ranking, the State is at 99 as against the 103 (0.609) rank of India.
The highest increase in human development has been recorded in Koppal, Gulbarga and Raichur districts in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region. But they remain at the bottom of the HDI chart.
One of the highlights of the report is that the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are about a decade behind the rest of the population in human development attainment. "The development process, to a considerable extent, has bypassed the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes," the report states.
Yet, their status in the State is better than their status at the all-India level.
It is for the first time that an HDI and GDI ranking has been offered for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. To facilitate a more systematic analysis, the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Karnataka conducted a special sample survey in 2004.
There has been a marginal increase in the number of schools.
The percentage of habitations with primary schools within a radius of one km has increased from 84 in 1993-94 to 88 in 2002-03.
With regard to health indices, infant mortality rate has declined sharply from 82 (per 1,000 live births) in 1990-91 to 52 in 2002-03.
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