Tamil Nadu ranked 1 in Good Governance Index

CHENNAI: In the Good Governance Index released by Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions on December 25, Tamil Nadu has bagged the top spot among 18 big states in the country. Although, the state performed well in five parameters among six, including public health, public infrastructure, judicial and public security among others, it lagged behind in commerce and industries parameter.

The index takes 10 sectors into its consideration including: citizen-centric governance, public health, public infrastructure & utilities, social welfare & development, agriculture and allied, commerce & industries, human resource development, judicial & public security, economic governance, and environment. Performance in these sectors is measured on the basis of 50 indicators.

The Southern State was followed by Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh secured the top four positions, followed by Andhra Pradesh (fifth), Gujarat (sixth), Haryana (seventh) and Kerala securing eighth rank. Madhya Pradesh is at the ninth rank, West Bengal at the tenth position, followed by Telangana (11^th), Rajasthan (12^th), Punjab (13^th), Orissa (14^th), Bihar (15^th), Goa (16^th), Uttar Pradesh (17^th) and Jharkhand at 18^th position.

To rank different states under the index, different states and Union Territories were divided into three different groups – Big States, North-East & Hill States and UTs. All states and UTs were ranked on all indicators separately and composite rankings were given to these UTs and states in their groups.

Among the group of big states, Tamil Nadu topped the ladder in Public Infrastructure and Judicial & Public Security parameters.

In the public infrastructure category, the parameters were towns and villages declared open defecation free, access to clean cooking fuel (LPG/PNG), access to potable water, 24/7 power supply availability, energy availability against the requirement and growth in per capita power consumption.

Under the judicial and pubic security, the indicators were availability of police personnel, ratio of women police personnel, conviction rate, disposal of cases by consumer court cases and disposal of court cases.

The state was able to secure a spot among top 10 when it comes to parameters like environment (3^rd), human economic governance (5^th), resource development (5^th), social welfare and development (7^th) and agriculture and allied (9^th), and it was ranked 14^th in commerce and industries.

The commerce and industries parameter had indicators such as ease of doing business, growth rate of industries and micro, small and medium enterprises. Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat rounded out the top five in this area of the assessment criteria.