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Overview of
the Tamil Nadu Human Development Report
Economic development of a
country is traditionally judged in terms of gross domestic
product (GDP). The greater the volume of GDP per capita,
higher the state of development and prosperity. But, the
GDP measure of development completely ignores the welfare of
the people. It is not necessarily true that high GDP
generates well-being to the people. It is not the volume of
GDP per se, but its distribution that matters much
for the well-being to the people. It is for these reasons
that economists like Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Mahbub
ul Haq have considered GDP as an inadequate measure of
development and instead advocated the concept of human
development.
The concept of human development
focusses on the ends rather than the means of development
and progress. The real objective of development should be
to create an environment for people to enjoy a long and
healthy life, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard
of living. Thus, the concept of human development is a
holistic one putting people at the centre of all aspects of
the development process.
The UNDP published the first
Human Development Report in 1990 in which it introduced a
new way of measuring human development by combining
indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and
income into a composite development index, the HDI. Since
1990, the UNDP has been publishing HDRs every year,
improving on the indicators. The most important of these
indices are the Gender Related Development Index (GDI), the
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) and the Human Poverty (HPI).
The GDI measures achievement in the same basic capabilities
(adult literacy, life expectancy and income) as the HDI
does, but takes note of the inequalities between men and
women. The GDI therefore reflects gender imbalances in
basic health, education and income. The GEM evaluates
progress in advancing women at the economic and political
level.
Human Development Reports (HDRs)
present analytical tools for policy decisions to address
gaps and inequalities. HDRs can be prepared and used at the
State level for identifying significant disparities and gaps
among districts, between the sexes and between urban and
rural areas, to name a few. It can help reallocate
resources to districts or groups with low HDI ranking.
A Workshop was held in New
Delhi to create an awareness among the States of the
concept of Human Development and to encourage the States to
prepare the State Human Development Reports. As the States
had different views on the approach and methodology to be
adopted for preparing the State HDRs, the Union Planning
Commission left it to the States to evolve its own approach
and methodology for the preparation of Human Development
Report as well as its scope and content.
HDR for Tamil Nadu
It was decided to prepare the
Tamil Nadu Human Development Report (TNHDR) as a totally
in-house exercise within Government. A Core Committee was
formed with the then Member-Secretary, State Planning
Commission Thiru L.N. Vijayaraghavan, I.A.S., as its
Chairman and many of the members who have exclusively worked
in, or have good knowledge of, the sectors which relate to
human development and more particularly in social sectors
(e.g. Tmt. Girija Vaidyanathan, I.A.S, Thiru K.V. Palanidurai, Full Time Member,
State Planning Commission, Tmt. Sheela Rani Chunkath, I.A.S.).
The first task was to collect data on core variables on
health and education, and income and poverty at the
sub-State level, particularly district-wise disaggregation
of the data. The State Human Development Report had to
bring out disparities between districts and therefore
reliable and authentic data disaggregated district-wise was
an essential pre-requisite in the preparation of the Human
Development Report. The State Directorate of Economics and
Statistics and its staff provided many valuable inputs in
the compilation of data on the core variables. The
district-wise income estimates were taken up for the first
time by the Directorate of Economics and Statistics. The
district-wise poverty estimates were similarly worked out by
combining the State and Central samples. The State
Education Department also contributed in the compilation of
the data in the school education sector.
A National Workshop was
conducted in association with the UNDP and the Union
Planning Commission at Chennai to deliberate the issues
concerning the measurement of indicators of Human
Development, construction of Human Development Index and to
evolve a broad approach and methodology for the preparation
of TNHDR. Eminent researchers, experts and academicians
from leading institutions and organizations like Dr.M.S.
Swaminathan Research Foundation, Madras School of Economics,
Madras Institute of Development Studies, Mother Theresa
Women’s University, Dr. Avinasilingam Deemed University,
Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad, Centre
for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, officials from
UNDP, Union Planning Commission, UNICEF, of different fields
all over the country and Senior Officers from the
neighbouring States participated in the Workshop. The
sectoral chapters were deliberated in the form of panel
discussions in the Workshop. UNDP funded the project of
preparation of Human Development Report.
Success stories on different
schemes / sectors of the State have been included as Box
items. Sectoral Profiles analyzing the inter-district
variations in the key indicators and to measure levels of
Human Development in sectors like Economy, Demography,
Education, Income and Poverty, Housing & Infrastructure,
Gender and Ageing have been annexed to the Report. Also,
tables on Human Development Index, Gender Development Index,
and Deprivation Index are also annexed to the Report with
the Technical Note on calculation of these indices in the
Report.
The intention of the TNHDR is to
make it easy for a reader to understand how the human
development is essential for people to enjoy a long and
healthy life. The HDR contains the following chapters:
Chapter – 1 : Tamil Nadu – A
Profile.
Chapter – 2 : Status of Human
Development in Tamil Nadu.
Chapter – 3: Employment, Income
and Poverty.
Chapter – 4: Demography, Health
and Nutrition.
Chapter – 5: Literacy and
Education.
Chapter – 6: Gender.
Chapter – 7: Social Security.
Chapter – 8 : The Road Ahead –
Tamil Nadu In the New Millennium.
In chapter 1 of this report,
the history and culture of Tamil Nadu is introduced to the
reader briefly and an overview of the State’s economy
particularly agriculture, industry, health and education
sectors are presented. The poverty levels and State’s
income are also discussed. Chapter 2 is what this report is
about – the status of human development in Tamil Nadu. The
Human Development Index (HDI) and the Gender Development (GDI)
computed district-wise are presented in this chapter and an
analysis made of the district disparities in HDI and GDI
values.
The Chapter on Employment,
Income and Poverty is unique for many reasons. It is for
the first time that commutation of district-wise income has
been attempted in the State with 1993 as the base year. The
section on Employment brings out the salient features of the
work force, the declining trend in agriculture in providing
stable employment and the policy interventions required to
correcting the trend.
In Chapter 4, a very detailed
presentation of the demography, health and nutrition status
has been made. A lot of inputs were obtained in writing
this chapter from experts in the respective fields. The
chapter brings out the performance in the health sector.
Literacy and Education: The
important aspect of human development is dealt with in
considerable detail in Chapter 5. The trends in literacy
since 1960s are outlined and the gender disparities in
literacy and how these have been narrowed over the last four
decades are discussed. The Census 2001 shows that the
female literacy gap has been considerably narrow though
Tamil Nadu continues to maintain the 3rd
position behind Kerala and Maharashtra in the overall
literacy rate. The rural-urban disparities in literacy are
also discussed.
The Chapter on Gender issues in
human development reveals that while Tamil Nadu is ahead of
most States in the absolute condition of women, the position
of women vis-a-vis men with respect to literacy, education,
work force participation, wages, asset ownership and
political participation needs attention.
In the Chapter on Social
Security, the new phenomenon of the aging population of
Tamil Nadu and its implications for the State are brought in
sharp focus. Tamil Nadu’s aging population is likely to
increase to 11.43% of the total population in 2011 which
would be next only to Kerala. This is no doubt due to
better health care services and improvement in the standard
of living.
The last Chapter in this report
looks at the challenges that lie for the State in the new
Millennium in improving educational attainment, health
standards, reducing disparities in income and poverty,
increasing avenues of employment and improving general
living conditions in terms of basic amenities and removing
regional disparities in human development.
This is Tamil Nadu's first HDR.
Tamil Nadu has fared very well in human development among
States in India. According to India's first National HDR
prepared by Union Planning Commission (March 2002), the
value of HDI for Tamil Nadu improved from 0.343 in 1981,
0.466 in 1991 to 0.531 in 2001 as against the all India HDI
value of 0.302, 0.381 and 0.472 respectively. The State's
ranking in HDI has improved by four positions from 7 to 3
during 1981-2001.
In the Foreword to the HDR, the
Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has pointed out that
development objectives are being defined not just in terms
of increase in GDP or per capita income but more broadly in
terms of enhancement of human well-being. The concept of
human development focusses on the actual well-being of the
people in terms of indicators like attainment of education,
health, life expectancy, access to safe drinking water,
sanitation facilities etc.
Publishers : Government of Tamil
Nadu in association with
Social Science Press, 69, Jor Bagh,New
Delhi-110003.
e-mail:
beteille@del3.vsnl.net.in
Distributors: D.K. Publishers &
Distributors (P) Ltd.,
1, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj,
New Delhi-110002.
e-mail:
dkpd@del3.vsnl.net.in |
