Perambalur and Villupuram, which were among the bottom five districts in the first Tamil Nadu Human Development Report (2003), still remain at the bottom even now, with regard to human development indicator (HDI) index.
This is one of the findings of the latest HDR, which was released last week.
The Tamil Nadu Human Development Report 2017 Ranks 32 districts index-wise – human development index, gender inequality index, child development index, multidimensional poverty index and food security index.
The human development index is calculated using per capita income, life expectancy at birth, literacy rate and gross enrollment ratio in primary and secondary schools.
Fourteen years ago, Dharmapuri, Pudukottai and Tirunelveli were the other bottom districts.
This time, Tiruvarur, Theni and Ariyalur have replaced them.
The Human Development Report has recommended increase in investments made for improving livelihoods as also in education and health sectors in these districts to enable them move out of low indices.
As for the top five districts, Virudhunagar has dislodged Coimbatore while four districts – Kanniyakumari, Thoothukudi, Chennai and Kancheepuram – have been able to retain their slots in the top league.
Virudhunagar’s rise is primarily due to “its relatively higher per capita income” which, in turn, has been attributed to the spread of small scale industries such as printing and fireworks, apart from a “vibrant agricultural marketing economy.”
Incomparable indices
While making the comparison with the 2003 document, the latest report has also pointed out that the two sets of indices are “not strictly comparable.”
Besides, some districts had seen bifurcation in the last 14 years.
Ariyalur’s poor show
Discussing inter-district variations, the report says Kancheepuram and Tirupur, which are ranked second and third in per capita income (PCI) category, are not part of the top-five category in health and education. Ariyalur fares poorly in most parameters such as PCI, literacy rate, and gross enrolment ratio for primary schools.
“Clearly, interventions in such districts [Ariyalur] need to be more broad based as opposed to designing sector-specific interventions in districts such as Tirupur that have high living standards but without comparable attainments in health or education,” the report adds.