Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

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2. Human Development Index
It goes without saying that Kerala continues to rank at
the top among Indian States with respect to the human
development index (as per 1981, 1991 and 2001
estimates), with continuous improvement. As already
seen elsewhere, the human development index of Kerala
increased from 0.685 in 1991 to 0.773 in 2001. What
is remarkable here is the almost uniform distribution of
the development within Kerala. To be more precise, as
Table 4.1 shows, the district-wise human development
indices of Kerala for 2001 all lie above 0.740. (Details
about the methodology for constructing these human
development indices are given in the Technical Note at the
end of this Report.) In fact, one district (Ernakulam) comes
out with a HDI as high as 0.80. The low-rung occupant is
Malappuram district with an index of 0.749, which itself
lies far above the index compared with other regions in
India. The hilly districts of Idukki and Wayanad are also in
the same range as Malappuram.
As already stated, what is striking nevertheless is
that there is little variation in human development
indices across the districts in Kerala. The coefficient
of variation is negligible, around 2 per cent. Also,
note that the component indices (of real per capita
income, health and education) are distributed with
minimum variability across the districts (though the
distribution of the district-wise per capita income in
PPP terms does appear with higher variability). Some
caution is necessary in the case of income, which as
we discussed earlier, does not include remittances
accruing, especially to some districts in the northern
part of Kerala (Table 3.3 in Chapter 3). The low income
Table 4.1: District-wise Human Development Indicators and Human Development Index, 2001
Districts
Real per capita Life Literacy Rate Gross Income Health Education HDI Rank
Income (PPP$)
2001-02
Expectancy
at Birth 2000
(7+) 2001 Enrolment
Ratio 2001
Index Index Index
Thiruvananthapuram 3,102 75.2 89.4 94.3 0.573 0.837 0.910 0.773 9
Kollam 2,885 77.1 91.5 96.1 0.561 0.868 0.930 0.787 6
Pathanamthitta 2,969 76.7 95.1 97.0 0.566 0.862 0.957 0.795 3
Alappuzha 2,989 77.1 93.7 96.8 0.567 0.868 0.947 0.794 4
Kottayam 3,286 75.6 95.9 97.0 0.583 0.843 0.963 0.796 2
Idukki 3,484 72.4 88.6 86.1 0.593 0.791 0.878 0.754 12
Ernakulam 3,646 75.9 93.4 99.1 0.600 0.849 0.953 0.801 1
Thrissur 3,117 76.4 92.6 101.4 0.574 0.857 0.950 0.794 5
Palakkad 2,513 76.1 84.3 99.5 0.538 0.851 0.894 0.761 10
Malappuram 1,881 75.6 88.6 96.8 0.490 0.843 0.913 0.749 14
Kozhikode 2,858 75.4 92.5 98.7 0.560 0.839 0.945 0.781 8
Wayanad 2,909 73.5 85.5 94.9 0.563 0.809 0.886 0.753 13
Kannur 2,719 75.6 92.8 101.0 0.551 0.844 0.955 0.783 7
Kasaragod 2,777 75.7 85.2 94.0 0.555 0.846 0.881 0.760 11
Kerala 2,895 74.6 90.9 97.3 0.562 0.827 0.930 0.773
Coefficient of Variation (%) 14.52 1.70 4.14 3.93 4.70 2.510 3.370 2.380