The report points out that Karnataka's Human Development Index increased from 0.541 in 1991 to 0.650 in 2001. The national average for HDI is 0.621. However, it is ranked seventh among 15 major states in this category.
The state's economic growth was behind the national average during the eighties (4.8 per cent per annum, compared with the national average of 5.4 per cent), but exceeded (6.9 per cent) the national average (6.1 per cent) during the nineties.
The human development rank of Karnataka has remained the same compared with the rank in the previous HDR of the state prepared in 1999. In fact, according to the National Human Development Report 2001, the state's rank has remained virtually unchanged since 1981 when it was sixth.
Karnataka's HDI status is much below that of Kerala (ranked first in the national report) and Tamil Nadu (ranked third) but ahead of Andhra Pradesh (ranked tenth).
The emergence of Bangalore in the last decade as a centre of economic growth has had its impact on the state's income. The city alone contributed about 22 per cent of the state's income. Bangalore urban and rural districts, which share nearly 16 per cent of the state's population (2001 figures), generated a quarter of the state's income.
While Bangalore has forged ahead, Bijapur, along with the Hyderabad-Karnataka region's triumvirate of Bidar, Gulbarga and Raichur districts, continued to be in the poorest quartile in terms of per capita domestic product.
However, Karnataka seems to have done relatively better in terms of employment during the 1990s. The current daily unemployment rate in rural Karnataka is 4.3 per cent, against an all-India average of 7.1 per cent. In the urban sector, Karnataka's rate is 5.4 per cent against an all-India rate 7.7 per cent.
"The state is experiencing a structural change in the composition of its domestic product with the share of the primary sector declining in favour of the tertiary sector and the intermediary sector remaining almost constant. Employment, however, continues to be primary sector oriented," observes the report.
Negative growth in organised sector employment in recent years is an area of concern highlighted by the report. The large number of agricultural labourers as a proportion of the total work force adversely impacts labour productivity.
Another area of concern highlighted by the report is "the low participation of women in the secondary and tertiary sectors. Women are found largely in unskilled low-end jobs." The state also has the second largest percentage of children living in poor households (both rural and urban) among the four southern states.
The state has performed well in literacy. Its literacy rate (66.64 per cent) increased by 10 percentage points between 1991 and 2001, with the female literacy rate increasing faster than the male literacy rate.
But disparities abound. The urban literacy rate stands at 80.58 per cent, while the rural literacy rate languishes at 59.3 per cent. What is worse, the illiteracy rate is 63 per cent among the scheduled tribes and 58 per cent among the scheduled caste women.
In keeping with other indicators, in terms of the sex ratio (women to men), Karnataka is ahead of the national average but behind other south Indian states. The national average is 933 women to 1,000 men, Kerala leads with 1058, followed by Tamil Nadu at 986, Andhra Pradesh at 978 and Karnataka at 965.
