MH Suryanarayana, professor at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research in Mumbai, addresses the seminar in Patna on Friday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Sept. 2: Bihar’s performance has been dismal on the human development index (HDI) that includes health, education and income.

The HDI is the highest for Kerala (0.625) and the lowest for Orissa (0.442) followed by Bihar (0.447). Bihar also ranks 19th out of 19 major cities of the country in income dimension index. It also ranks 16th out of 19 major cities in the country in inequality adjustment income index.

Such figures were revealed today during the discussion on “The inequality across the Indian states and its impact on human development” organised by the United Nations Development Programme, Patna, in association with the department of planning and development, Bihar.

“Bihar has always been performing badly on human development indices, including income, health and education. In fact it is almost the lowest in the country as per our latest assessment. The major reason behind this is poor income generation in the state, which has led to poor health and education development. Also, the infant mortality is very high in the state, which stands at 51 per 1,000 as per our last findings. However, the situation in northern Bihar is comparatively poorer than central Bihar,” said M.H. Suryanarayana, professor from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai.

Suryanarayana is also one of the authors of the report titled “Inequality — adjusted human development index for India states”, on which he made an informative presentation today during the discussion. However, the findings of this report were objected by a few of the participants on the basis of methodology of assessment and identification of social groups for the analysis.