Regional Imbalances Redressal Committee to submit report by September this year

Karnataka committee revisits development indicators to create new index, addressing regional imbalances with public input and data analysis.

A high-power committee to study regional imbalances will revisit the 35 development indicators in the Nanjundappa Committee report and work out a new Comprehensive Composite Development Index (CCDI), chairman of Karnataka Regional Imbalances Redressal Committee M. Govinda Rao has said.

Addressing presspersons after chairing a redressal committee meeting to receive inputs from public representatives, officials and organisations here on Thursday, Prof. Rao said that there are some complexities with the 35 development indicators as they include both input and output variables.

For example, he said, data of poor pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) is an input variable, while the resultant literacy data is an output variable and both of them must be studied independently.

Though the committee was set up in March 2024, it started functioning in full swing only by September 2024 and aims to submit its report to the State government by September this year, Prof. Rao reiterated.

“In the last five months, the committee has prepared questionnaires for public representatives, administrators, educational institutions, Chamber of Commerce and Industries, research scholars and economists to assess the opinions and suggestions from various platforms. We have also written to the Department of Statistics seeking details on development in each taluk. In parallel, the committee is collecting data from all departments for conducting district-wise and taluk-wise analysis,” he said.

During the meeting, founder-president of Kalyana Karnataka Horata Samiti Lakshman Dasti suggested that measuring Human Development Index (HDI) from gram panchayat level will provide detailed information on development aspects of taluks followed by the districts.

Mr. Dasti said that the region’s poor human development index, the irrigation projects lingering on for decades, the poor performance in SSLC results, the crippled healthcare services due to shortage of staff at the primary health centres and community health centres will speak volumes of discrimination being meted out to Kalyana Karnataka region all these years.