Chennai: Tamil Nadu has pipped Gujarat, at least in the multi-dimensional index, according to a report submitted by a Central government panel headed by RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. The Centre had constituted a six-member expert committee, led by the former chief economic adviser in the finance ministry, for fixing a new criterion to determine the backwardness of Indian states. The committee, which submitted its report on Thursday to the finance ministry, rated Tamil Nadu along with seven others as the most developed states in the country while rating Gujarat along with 11 others in the less-developed states category. Multi dimensional index (MDI) of backwardness, the report said, is based on per capita consumption as measured by the national sample survey organisation, the poverty ratio and a number of other measures that correspond to the multi dimensional approach to defining poverty outlined in the Twelfth Plan. As per the report, states with scores of 0.6 and above on the index have been classified as ‘least developed’; states with scores below 0.6 and above 0.4 as ‘less developed’; and states with scores below 0.4 as ‘relatively developed’. Based on the MDI scores, the 10 least developed states are Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattis garh, Jharkhand, Arun achal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The seven most developed states are Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra, Uttrakhand and Haryana while the 11 less developed states are Gujarat, Manipur, West Bengal, Nagaland, Andhra Prad esh, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Tripura, Karnataka, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.
