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 Sunday, 20 July 2008 |
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Miles to go to reach the MDGs in Madhya Pradesh |
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Written by Kirti Mishra,
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Thursday, 23 February 2006 |
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Page 1 of 3 Kirti Mishra, 22 February 2006
The Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the current United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) government and the National Development Goals
articulated in the Tenth Five-Year Plan are broadly in agreement with
the Millennium Development Goals (agreed upon by 189 countries in 2000)
of poverty reduction, achieving universal primary education, promoting
gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health,
and ensuring environmental sustainability.
India’s share of the world’s responsibility in meeting the MDGs is
phenomenal. It accounts for 25% of global maternal deaths, 34% of the
world’s underweight children, 23% of under-5 children deaths, and 28%
of the world’s poor living on less than $ 1 a day.
A further disaggregated analysis at the state level brings out
different levels of human development and varied performances of state
policy in guaranteeing protective and promotive social securities.
Inter-state comparisons are important from the perspective of the MDGs,
for they identify low-performing states that have to be goaded out of
their slumber if the promises made in the Millennium Declaration are to
be kept.
Madhya Pradesh and the Millennium Development Goals
Madhya Pradesh is an important Indian state; second largest in terms of
area, with around 6% of the country’s population. In 2000, the new
state of Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh’s
tribal-dominated regions. In its present form, Madhya Pradesh comprises
9 commissioner divisions, 48 districts, 272 tehsils and 313 community
development blocks including 89 tribal development blocks. Its local
self-governance structure comprises 45 zilla (district) panchayats, 313
janpad (block) and 22,029 village panchayats. The state comprises five
distinct regions -- Malwa, Nimar, Bundelkhand, Baghelkhand and
Mahakoshal -- with great differentials in human development indices.
According to the 2001 census, 20% of Madhya Pradesh’s population is
classified as tribal, and 15% of its population belongs to the
scheduled castes. Among its districts, Jhabua, Dindora, Barwani,
Mandla, Shahdol, Umaria, Betul, Seoni, West Nimar and Sidhi have a
tribal population of over 30%. The scheduled caste population is
concentrated in the districts of Datia, Chhatarpur, Ujjain, Tikamgarh,
Shajapur, Gwalior, Morena, Bhind, Sagar, Vidisha, Sehore, Panna and
Damoh. The generic profile of these structurally poor groups is marked
by deprivation of even basic services like health, education and
sanitation (due to the discriminatory caste system, geographical
location and culture), and the state’s denial of land, water and forest
rights, resulting in an erosion of livelihood opportunities. The
inequality of opportunities faced by scheduled castes and scheduled
tribes prompted the third Human Development Report of Madhya Pradesh
(2002) to highlight the need for an ST-SC Development Index. With 37.4%
of its population below the poverty line, Madhya Pradesh is one of the
poorest states in the country. It ranks third among the traditionally
BIMARU states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) and
Orissa. It has an above-all-India average percentage of poor, while the
state’s per capita income falls below the national average of Rs
15,626. Madhya Pradesh’s estimated per capita expenditure per month on
food is Rs 128.60 -- the lowest in the country. This is a clear
indication ofwidespread poverty and lack of livelihood security that
affects a sizeable population of the state (State HDR, 2002). An
estimated 38.2% of women in Madhya Pradesh are undernourished (39.9% of
scheduled caste and 49.2% of scheduled tribe women). Around 56% of its
children suffer malnutrition. The amount of foodgrain supplied to the
state under the public distribution system is extremely low (it
constitutes only 2.78% of total cereal consumption by levels of calorie
intake), compared to states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu
(Citizen’s Report on MDGs).
Madhya Pradesh’s performance on several human development indicators is
dismal. At 85 per 1,000 live births, the state has a high Infant
Mortality Rate (IMR), second only to Orissa at 87; the country average
is 63 (SRS 2004). Similarly, the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) of
undivided Madhya Pradesh, at 498, is extremely high, in league with
Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and the all-India average of 407.
While the state has shown marked improvements in literacy, from 27.90
in 1981 to 64.11 in 2001, only 50% of females, as against 77% of males,
are literate.
Around 38% of rural households do not have access to safe drinking
water. Given the fact that diarrhoea kills 400,000 under-5s each year
in the country, and waterborne diseases afflict a sizeable number of
poor people, adequate and safe drinking water is necessary to ensure
healthy lives and is an important component of public health.
Madhya Pradesh’s overall ranking in the Human Development Index
constituted by education (literacy and children’s enrolment in
schools), health (life expectancy) and per capita income, is much below
the all-India average and very low compared to most states, with the
exception of Bihar, Assam and Uttar Pradesh. At the district level, the
Human Development Index varies between 0.694 (highest) for Indore and
0.372 (lowest) for Jhabua. Similarly, the Gender Development Index,
which disaggregates education, health and income figures in terms of
male and female, shows huge variations among the districts, with Dewas
leading at 0.634 and Morena, at 0.436, scoring lowest. Interestingly,
the poorest performers -- Jhabua and Morena -- have a high percentage
of scheduled tribe (85) and scheduled caste (21) populations. This
indicates systemic exclusion of these social groups from access to
equal development rights.
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