New Delhi, Jan 31 (IANS): India's overall score on the NITI Aayog Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) India index and dashboard improved to 66 in 2020-21 from 60 in 2019-20 and 57 in 2018-19, indicating progress in the journey towards achieving the goals, as per the Economic Survey 2021-22.

Despite 2020-21 being a pandemic year, India performed well on eight of the 15 SDGs measured by the NITI Aayog SDG India Index, it said.

These included - goal 3 (good health and well-being), goal 6 (clean water and sanitation), goal 7 (affordable and clean energy), goal 10 (reduced inequalities), goal 11 (sustainable cities and communities), goal 12 (responsible consumption and production), goal 15 (life on land). and goal 16 (peace, justice, and strong institutions).

India's federal structure implies that states must take charge to enable progress on achieving the country's SDGs, the Survey said. The NITI Aayog SDG India Index - the world's first government-led sub-national measure of SDG progress - has been developed to capture the progress of all states and Union Territories in their journey towards achieving the SDGs.

This index recognises that action is required at all levels, and it is therefore based on the approach of cooperative and competitive federalism.

NITI Aayog has been publishing the SDG India Index annually since 2018. The third edition (2020-21) computes goal-wise scores on the 16 SDGs for each state and UT, and a qualitative assessment on Goal 17.

Overall state and UT scores are generated from goal-wise scores to measure aggregate performance of the sub-national unit based on its performance across the 16 SDGs. These scores range between 0-100, with states and UTs being categorised as aspirant (score 0-49), performer (score 50-64), front runner (65-99) and achiever (score 100).