DEVELOPMENT
INTRODUCTION
• Development is the process of growing and becoming better.
• Ideas of development differ at an individual and national level. Example: A landless rural laborer
may desire more days of work and better wages at the individual level, but at the national level, he
may want a good education and health facilities in the local area.
WHAT DEVELOPMENT PROMISES — DIFFERENT PEOPLE, DIFFERENT GOALS
• Different People have different developmental goals.
• For Example: the developmental goal of a boy from a rich urban family would be to get admission
to a reputed college, whereas the developmental goal of a girl from a rich urban family would be to
get as much freedom as her brother.
• What may be development for one may not be development for another. It may even be
destructive for the other.
For Example: To get more electricity, an industrialist may want more dams. But this may submerge
the land and disrupt the lives of displaced people, such as tribes.
INCOME AND OTHER GOALS
1) Material Things — money, car, house, etc.
2) Non-material Things — freedom, friends, equality, respect, etc. Both material and non-material
things are equally important, or we can say that for development, people look at a mix of goals.
COMPARING THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES/STATES
Comparison through National Income
• National Income is the income of all the residents of the country over a period of time and is also
known as National Income. The total income of a country is the main criterion for comparing a
developed country with an underdeveloped one. Countries with higher income are more
developed than other countries as more income means more of all the things that a human being
needs.
Limitation of National Income:
It is not a useful measure as countries have different populations and comparing total income will not
state the average amount earned by a person.
Comparison through Per Capita Income
It is also called as average income. It gives a better comparison than National Income. Although
'averages' serve as a useful tool for comparison, they can mask disparities. For instance, if a small
segment of the population has a significantly high income, the average income may also appear
elevated, obscuring the true nature of the overall economic situation.
Assuming both countries have only 5 people each, despite both having an average income or per
capita income of ■9000/-, it's evident that country X is superior to country Y. Because, Country A has
more equitable distribution. Most citizens in Country B are poor and one person is extremely rich.
Limitation of per capita income: it does not tell us how the income is distributed among people.
WORLD BANK REPORT ON PER CAPITA INCOME
World Bank publishes World Development Report every year to compare the nations on the basis of
Per Capita Income.
• Low-Income Countries: GNI per capita of $1,045 or less.
• Lower-Middle-Income Countries: GNI per capita between $1,046 and $4,095.
• Upper-Middle-Income Countries: GNI per capita between $4,096 and $12,695.
• High-IncomeCountries: GNI per capita of $ 12,696 or more.
OTHER CRITERIA
• Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is the ratio of the number of children who perish before reaching one
year of age to every 1,000 live births in a given year.
• Literacy Rate is the percentage of the population aged five years and above that is literate.
• Net Attendance Ratio is the percentage of children in the age group of 14 and 15 years who are
attending school out of the total number of children in the same age group.
• Life Expectancy is the mean anticipated duration of an individual's life at the time of birth.
• Internationally, the Body Mass Index (BMI) serves as a universal standard for assessing
whether an adult is undernourished or not.
A BMI less than 18.5 is considered undernourished, while a BMI of 25 or lower is considered normal.
PUBLIC FACILITIES
• The money you have may not be enough to buy everything you need for a good life. For
example, money can't get you clean air or make sure the medicines you buy are safe unless you
can move to a place that already has these things.
• Government-provided public facilities are the most cost-effective and efficient means to
collectively offer these goods and services. Kerala is a preferred living destination with a low Infant
Mortality Rate (IMR).
• The state's effective public distribution system ensures that everyone has access to healthy food
and nutrition status of people is better.
• Adequate provision of basic health facilities in Kerala ensures proper medical treatment for
residents.
• Kerala's proper education facilities contribute to raising awareness among the population.
Human Development Report:
The Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), stands out as one of the premier methods for assessing development.
The report compares countries based on three criteria namely:
• Living standard (Per Capita Income)
• Health status (Life expectancy)
• Educational levels of the people (Literacy rate and years of schooling).
Despite being affluent, some countries in the Middle East lack adequate education and health
standards, which disqualifies them from being classified as developed nations. In the Human
Development Report (HDR), India holds the 130th rank, while Sri Lanka secures the 76th position.
SUSTAINABILITY OF DEVELOPMENT
• Development should occur without causing harm to the environment.
• Groundwater is at risk of overuse, posing a serious threat to its sustainability.
• Excessive mining of resources like iron, gold, silver, and coal, along with crude oil extraction,
depletes these valuable stocks.
• Factories emitting smoke and harmful gases contribute to environmental pollution.
• Water and air pollution issues impact the current living conditions and have implications for future
generations.
Exhaustion of Natural Resources: According to World Energy Review, June 2018, the total
reserves of the crude oil stock in the world is going to last just for 50 years as countries are fast using
up the oil reserves.