The Telangana Assembly elections are scheduled to take place on November 30. A comparison of the economic, social, and environmental indicators of the poll-bound State with the indicators of other States shows that Telangana’s economic performance is better than many States. However, this has not translated into better outcomes in measures related to women’s empowerment and child development.
In fact, across many social indicators, the State features at the bottom half of the rankings. Also, its performance worsened between 2015-16 and 2019-21. Temporal comparisons across many indicators were not possible as Telangana is a relatively new State.
Table 1 | The table shows Telangana’s rank in social indicators and its actual score in a parameter in 2019-21 and 2015-16. It also lists the change in Telangana’s rank in 2019-21 from 2015-16. The top three States in a parameter are also given for comparison.
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For instance, Telangana had 21.7% of wasted children (low weight-for-age) in 2019-21 and ranked 26 out of 30 States. The three best States that year were Punjab (10.6% of stunted children), Haryana (11.5%) and Uttarakhand (13.2%). Telangana’s ranking fell by 10 spots in 2019-21 from 2015-16, the year when it was placed 16th out of 30 States.
On indicators of women empowerment, Telangana’s performance has been among the worst. For instance, as only 60.9% of the female population aged six years and above had ever attended school, Telangana ranked the lowest of all the 30 States analysed in 2019-21. Close to 23.5% of women aged 20-24 years were married before 18 years of age in 2019-21; Telangana ranked 23 out of 30. In both these indicators, the rankings slid compared to 2015-16.
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The State’s rankings declined by five spots in infant mortality, by six spots in the share of underweight children (low weight-for-age), and by five spots in the share of households where any member is covered under a health insurance/financing scheme, between 2015-16 and 2019-21. In most of the social indicators analysed in Table 1, Telangana did not feature in the top 10 (except insurance coverage).
Table 2 | The table shows Telangana’s rank in indicators related to education.
The State performed relatively better in educational parameters (Table 2). It featured in the top half of the rankings list in the category of enrolment rates across various stages of school education. In fact, in the adjusted net enrolment ratio in elementary education (Class 1-8) and general enrolment ratio in higher education, the State featured in the top 10 in 2020.
Table 3 | The table shows Telangana’s per capita net state domestic product in 2021-22
Telangana ranked fourth in terms of the per capita Net State Domestic Product at Current Prices for 2021-22 (Table 3). In the State, 26% of the population was in the lowest two wealth quintiles (2020); Telangana ranked 13 of the 30 States analysed (Table 4).
Table 4 | The table shows the share of the population belonging to the lowest two wealth quintiles in Telangana.
The manufacturing sector contributed to 11.5% of the State’s GVA and provided employment to 12.9% of the State’s total workforce (Table 5).
Table 5 | The table shows Telangana‘s rank in indicators related to manufacturing.
While the State is among the leaders in the country in terms of economic performance, the growth came at a cost as Telangana lagged behind on environment-related indicators (Table 6). The State generated the seventh-highest amount of hazardous waste — on average, 9.93 metric tonnes per 1,000 people — in 2018. It also generated the fifth-highest plastic waste in the country — 4.94 tonnes per 1,000 people, in 2018-19.
Table 6 | The table shows Telangana‘s rank in environment-related indicators.
As economic performance did not translate much into social development, the State ranked 17 of 30 in the Human Development Index in 2021 (Table 7). However, this was still better than the performance of divided Andhra Pradesh which was ranked even lower at the 21st spot.
Table 7 | The table shows Telangana‘s actual score in the human development index (HDI) in 2021.
Source: National Family Health Surveys, Global Data Lab and NITI Aayog
rebecca.varghese@thehindu.co.in, vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in
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