Developing the Social Progress Index for Tamil Nadu

Abstract

This paper explores the Social Progress Index (SPI) developed by Michael Green and extends the concept by developing the Index for the state of Tamil Nadu. The Social Progress Index is supposed to be a robust and holistic measurement framework for social and environmental performance of a society compared to that of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). SPI is available for a country and not for any specific state. India being a diverse country endowed with different geography, socioeconomic conditions, there is a need for developing SPI for each of the states of India. This research addresses the issue of creating Social Progress Index for the state of Tamil Nadu and the individual districts within the state to measure the performance of the state and the districts relative to each other. Chennai, Kanyakumari and Coimbatore are found to be relative good performers while Dharmapuri, Pramablur and Villipuram are found to be laggards in SPI.