PANAJI
The Centre for Science and Environment's (CSE) report on the state of India’s environment released on Wednesday, the eve of World Environment Day, has ranked Goa on top of all other States in 'human development' and ‘public healthcare’.
The report is an analysis of year-long data and statistics on environment and development in India sourced from the government itself and it ranks States and Union Territories on performance in four thematic areas: environment, agriculture, public health and human development and public infrastructure.
Andhra Pradesh tops the rankings in the ‘environment’ category, having excelled in managing its forests and biodiversity and for its efforts to contain the impacts of climate change.
In ‘agriculture’, Sikkim scores the highest with its strong performance in agricultural inputs and sustainable land-use practices.
Goa is at the top spot in the thematic areas of both ‘public health’ and ‘human development and public infrastructure’.
The report says Goa is the only State where all registered deaths are medically certified with a known cause of death.
But not everything in the CSE report about Goa is rosy.
"Goa has a shortage of hospital beds per 1,000 people and also lags behind in per capita power availability and the number of women in its labour force," the report states.
Nationally, the report points out that in terms of public health, nearly five years after the Covid-19 pandemic began, its impact still lingers in the country.
"Government data now estimates 3.06 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 which is over six times the official Covid-19 toll.
