Srinagar, Nov 5: Jammu and Kashmir is ranked as the second best-governed Union Territory in India as per the Public Affairs Index (PAI) 2021 with a score of 0.390.
The sixth edition of Public Affairs Index 2021 from the Public Affairs Centre is a non-partisan, independent and evidence-based study using only Central government data available in the public domain.
It looks at governance performance in the context of sustainable development defined by three pillars – Equity, Growth and Sustainability, five themes, 14 sustainable development goals and 43 indicators. The index has also taken into consideration each State’s/UT’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As per the index report, among Union Territories Puducherry tops, the overall rankings (also 1st in the overall PAI 2021 Index) followed by Jammu and Kashmir ranking 2nd (improving one rank compared to PAI 2020). Placing at the bottom are Andaman and Nicobar Islands (5th) and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (6th) among UTs.
According to the report, under this year’s sustainability pillar’s topper in the Union Territory (UT) category is Puducherry,
followed by a surprising addition of Jammu and Kashmir at 2nd and Andaman and Nicobar Islands at 3rd position who slipped two ranks after topping this pillar last year
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
According to the governance index, J&K has shown an improvement as compared to last year, in 2020 Public Affairs Index (PAI)-2020 had placed the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir at the bottom in the best governance index with a score of negative points.
In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI). States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.