In a giant leap, Uttar Pradesh (UP) secured the Top rank in ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all in the Index for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) released by government’s think tank NITI Aayog.
It was the third edition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) India Index and Dashboard 2020-21 launched by NITI Ayog.
The Yogi-led state retained the top spot this year in attaining the ‘Goal 7’ and was hailed as an ‘Achiever’ as it showed an improvement of +37 points in the score for this SDG.
Furthermore, the results show that the state’s overall sustainable development goals score has improved by a remarkable five points. It has gone up from 42 in 2018 to 55 in 2019 to now 60 in 2020-21.
This positive stride towards achieving the targets is largely driven by exemplary state-wide performance in Goal 7(Affordable and Clean Energy), Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) and Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) where the composite Goal scores are 100, 83, 79, 79 and 77 respectively.
The SDG India Index is tabulated annually by NITI Aayog in order to evaluate the progress of states and union territories on the basis of social, economic and environmental parameters. The third rendition was released by Niti Aayog vice-chairperson Rajiv Kumar on Thursday.
Uttar Pradesh has emerged as an ‘Achiever’ and a ‘Front-runner’ in maximum parameters as the state has significantly improved its performance in all the parameters in just a span of two years.
The state’s progress in the Goal 3 (good health and well-being) is contributed to the low Suicide Rate in Uttar Pradesh as reported by the National Crime Records Bureau which is at 2.4 per 1,00,000 population.
In a significant development, Uttar Pradesh in Goal 8 (decent work and economic growth) has been ranked as one of the best performing states with a Feedback score of 50.1 by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
It is noteworthy that Uttar Pradesh also registered the steepest decline close to 17 percent in reduction in desertified area and is among the only four states that showed a decreasing trend in desertification, fulfilling the Goal 15 (life on land).
