Development — Detailed Notes
1. What Development Promises — Different People, Different Goals
The idea of development (or progress) means thinking about what we want to become, how we want to live, and how we can work towards those goals. Two key truths run through the whole chapter:
• Different persons can have different developmental goals. A landless labourer wants more days of work and better wages; a prosperous Punjab farmer wants higher support prices and cheap labour; an urban unemployed youth wants a job; a girl from a land-owning family wants the same freedom as her brother.
• What is development for one may not be development for another — it may even be destructive for the other. Example: industrialists may want more dams for electricity, but the same dam submerges land and displaces tribals, who may instead prefer small check dams. So goals can be not only different but conflicting.
2. Income and Other Goals
Looking across people, one common desire is more income — through regular work, better wages and decent prices. But besides income, people also seek non-material goals: equal treatment, freedom, security, respect of others, and a pollution-free environment. These are often not easily measured, yet they matter deeply.
Example: before accepting a far-off job you weigh not just pay but family facilities, working atmosphere, job security and time for family. A high-pay job with no security and no family time may actually reduce your sense of wellbeing. If women get paid work their dignity rises; if there is respect for women, housework is shared more. So people look at a mix of goals — material and non-material.
3. National Development
Since individuals seek different goals, their idea of national development also differs and can conflict. The key questions are: Can all ideas be treated as equally important? If there is a conflict, how do we decide a fair and just path for all? Would an idea benefit a large number of people or only a small group? National development means thinking about these questions.
4. How to Compare Different Countries or States?
For comparing countries, income is considered the most important attribute, because more income is assumed to buy more of the things people need. But total income is not useful for comparison because countries have different populations. So we use average income = total income ÷ total population, also called per capita income.
World Bank classification (World Development Reports, 2024 data):
• High-income / rich countries: per capita income of US$ 66,500 per annum and above (2024).
• Low-income countries: about US$ 2,300 or less.
• India: per capita income about US$ 11,000 (2024) → a low-middle-income country.
Rich countries (excluding Middle East and certain small countries) are generally called developed countries.
5. Average Income Hides Disparities
Averages are useful but they hide inequalities. Compare two countries with identical average income but different distribution — Country A, where everyone earns roughly the same, versus Country B, where most are poor and one person is extremely rich. Both have the same average, yet most people would prefer Country A because its income is more equitably distributed. So per capita income tells us the size of income but not how it is distributed.
6. Income and Other Criteria — Public Facilities
Money in your pocket cannot buy everything you need to live well — a pollution-free environment, unadulterated medicines, or protection from infectious diseases. Many important things are provided best, and cheapest, collectively (e.g. a school, public security, a Public Distribution System). This is why we need indicators beyond income. Compare three states:
| State | Per Capita Income 2023-24 (₹) | Infant Mortality Rate (2020) | Literacy Rate | Net Attendance Ratio (15-17 yrs) |
|---|
| Haryana | 3,25,759 | 28 | 82% | 73 |
| Kerala | 2,81,001 | 6 | 94% | 94 |
| Bihar | 60,337 | 27 | 62% | 69 |
Key insight: Haryana has a higher per capita income than Kerala, yet Kerala has a far lower Infant Mortality Rate and higher literacy and attendance. The reason — Kerala has adequate public provision of health and education (and a well-functioning PDS). So income by itself is an inadequate measure of development.
7. Key Terms (do not just memorise — understand)
• Infant Mortality Rate (IMR): number of children who die before age one per 1,000 live births in a year.
• Literacy Rate: proportion of the literate population in the 7-and-above age group.
• Net Attendance Ratio: number of children aged 15-17 attending school, as a % of all children in that age group.
• Life Expectancy at birth: average expected length of life of a person at birth.
• Per Capita Income: total income of a country ÷ its total population.
• Purchasing Power Parity (PPP): adjusts income so that one dollar buys the same amount of goods and services in every country, allowing fair comparison.
8. Human Development — HDI (UNDP Human Development Report)
Once we accept that income alone is inadequate, we add a small number of the most important indicators: health and education. The UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI) ranks countries using three things — per capita income (GNI in PPP $), life expectancy at birth, and mean years of schooling. By "pre-fixing Human to Development", it stresses that what matters is the people — their health and wellbeing.
From HDR 2025 (data for 2023): India's HDI rank was 130 out of 193 countries, with GNI per capita about $9,047 and life expectancy about 72 years. Strikingly, small neighbour Sri Lanka ranks much higher (89), and even Nepal and Bangladesh — with lower per capita income than India — do better in life expectancy. This shows income is not the whole story.
9. Sustainability of Development
We want today's development to continue for future generations. Since the mid-20th century scientists have warned that present levels of development are not sustainable. Resources are of two kinds:
• Renewable resources (groundwater, crops, plants) — replenished by nature, but can still be over-used. India's groundwater is under serious threat: about 300 districts reported a water-level fall of over 4 metres in 20 years, and nearly one-third of the country is over-using its groundwater.
• Non-renewable resources (crude oil, coal) — a fixed stock that gets exhausted. World crude-oil reserves were estimated to last only about 50 years at the 2017 rate of use; India must import oil, so rising prices become a burden for everyone.
Environmental degradation does not respect national or state boundaries — our future is linked together. Hence sustainability is central to any discussion of development. "We have not inherited the world from our forefathers — we have borrowed it from our children."
10. One-line Recap
Development is about diverse, sometimes conflicting goals; income matters but is not enough; we must also look at equitable distribution, health, education (HDI) and the sustainability of the resources our development depends on.
NCERT Solutions — Chapter 1: Development
1Development of a country can generally be determined by — (i) per capita income (ii) average literacy level (iii) health status of its people (iv) all the above.
(iv) all the above. Development is multi-dimensional — a single indicator (only income, or only literacy) is inadequate. Per capita income, literacy and the health status of people are all used together to judge how developed a country is.
2Which of the following neighbouring countries has better performance in terms of human development than India? (i) Bangladesh (ii) Sri Lanka (iii) Nepal (iv) Pakistan.
(ii) Sri Lanka. In the Human Development Report, Sri Lanka ranks well above India (rank 89 vs India's 130) and is ahead on life expectancy, schooling and per capita income.
3Assume there are four families in a country. The average per capita income is ₹5000. If the income of three families is ₹4000, ₹7000 and ₹3000 respectively, what is the income of the fourth family?
Average per capita income = ₹5000Number of families = 4Total income of all four = average × number = 5000 × 4 = ₹20,000.Income of the three known families = 4000 + 7000 + 3000 = ₹14,000.Income of the fourth family = 20,000 − 14,000 = ₹6,000.Answer: (iv) ₹6,000.
4What is the main criterion used by the World Bank in classifying different countries? What are the limitations of this criterion, if any?
Main criterion: Per capita income (average income) — countries with per capita income of US$ 66,500 and above (2024) are called rich/high-income; those with about US$ 2,300 or less are low-income. India (about US$ 11,000) is a low-middle-income country.
Limitations:
• It shows only the average and hides the distribution of income — two countries with the same average can have very different levels of inequality.
• It ignores non-material / qualitative aspects — health, education, environment, security, freedom.
• Money cannot buy collective goods such as a pollution-free environment or disease-free surroundings.
So per capita income is useful but not a complete measure of development.
5In what respects is the criterion used by the UNDP for measuring development different from the one used by the World Bank?
The World Bank uses only per capita income. The UNDP (Human Development Index) is broader — it combines three indicators: per capita income (GNI in PPP $), health (life expectancy at birth) and education (mean years of schooling of people aged 25+). Thus UNDP captures the quality of life of people, not just their income, giving a more complete picture of development.
6Why do we use averages? Are there any limitations to their use? Illustrate with your own examples related to development.
Why averages: Different things/places have different totals and sizes (e.g. different populations), so to compare them fairly we reduce them to a per-unit figure — e.g. per capita income compares countries of different population sizes.
Limitation: An average hides disparities between individuals.
Example: Suppose in a class of 5 students, four score 90 and one scores 10 → average 74; in another class four score 70 and one scores 90 → average 74. Same average, very different spread.
Development example: Two countries can have the same average income, but in one, income is spread evenly while in the other one person is extremely rich and the rest are poor. The average is identical, yet the countries are very different to live in.
7Kerala, with lower per capita income, has a better human development ranking than Haryana. Hence, per capita income is not a useful criterion at all and should not be used to compare states. Do you agree? Discuss.
Partly disagree. It is true that Kerala, despite a lower per capita income than Haryana, has a much lower Infant Mortality Rate and higher literacy and attendance — because of strong public provision of health and education. This proves that per capita income alone is inadequate.
However, it would be wrong to say income is not useful at all. Income is still important — it is needed to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure, and it is one of the three components of the HDI itself. The correct conclusion is that per capita income should be used together with health and education indicators, not abandoned.
8Find out the present sources of energy that are used by the people in India. What could be the other possibilities fifty years from now?
Present sources: firewood and cow-dung cake, coal, crude oil/petroleum, natural gas, electricity (thermal and hydel), and to a smaller extent nuclear and renewable sources.
Possibilities after 50 years: Since fossil fuels (coal, oil) are non-renewable and will be largely exhausted, India is likely to depend much more on renewable energy — solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, biogas — and on hydrogen fuel, nuclear energy and electric vehicles. This shift is essential for sustainable development.
9Why is the issue of sustainability important for development?
Sustainability is important because development must be able to continue for future generations, not just the present one. Many resources our development depends on are non-renewable (oil, coal) and even renewable ones (groundwater) are being over-used. If we exhaust or damage them now, future generations will be left without the means to develop — and environmental damage (pollution, climate change) crosses national borders, affecting everyone. Hence development that is not sustainable is self-defeating.
10“The Earth has enough resources to meet the needs of all but not enough to satisfy the greed of even one person.” How is this statement relevant to the discussion of development? Discuss.
This statement (associated with Mahatma Gandhi) means nature can comfortably support everyone's basic needs, but it cannot sustain unlimited greed and over-consumption. It is highly relevant to development because present patterns of over-use — over-pumping groundwater, over-extracting oil, excessive consumption by the rich — are exhausting resources and degrading the environment. It argues for equitable, need-based and sustainable development rather than reckless growth driven by greed.
11List a few examples of environmental degradation that you may have observed around you.
Examples: falling groundwater levels and drying wells; rivers and ponds polluted by sewage and industrial waste; air pollution from vehicles and factories; cutting of trees / shrinking green cover; piles of plastic and solid waste; soil erosion and loss of fertility; loud noise pollution; and black, smoky exhaust from burning fuels. (Answers will vary with the student's locality.)
12For each of the items given in Table 1.6, find out which country is at the top and which is at the bottom.
Based on HDR data for India and its neighbours:
• GNI per capita (PPP $): Top — Sri Lanka; Bottom — Nepal.
• Life expectancy at birth: Top — Sri Lanka; Bottom — Myanmar.
• Mean years of schooling: Top — Sri Lanka; Bottom — Pakistan.
• HDI rank (best = top): Top — Sri Lanka; Bottom — Pakistan.
(Sri Lanka leads on every count; Pakistan/Myanmar/Nepal are at the bottom depending on the indicator.)
13The table shows the proportion of adults (15-49 yrs) whose BMI is below normal (undernourished) in India — Kerala (M 8.5, F 10), Karnataka (M 17, F 21), Madhya Pradesh (M 28, F 28), All States (M 20, F 23). (i) Compare the nutritional level of people in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. (ii) Why is around one-fifth of the country undernourished even though there is enough food?
(i) Comparison: In Kerala only about 8.5% of men and 10% of women are undernourished, whereas in Madhya Pradesh about 28% of both men and women are undernourished — nearly three times higher. So Kerala's nutritional level is far better than Madhya Pradesh's.
(ii) Why one-fifth remain undernourished: Even though the country produces enough food, it does not reach everyone because of poverty and unequal distribution — many poor people cannot afford to buy it; a weak or poorly functioning Public Distribution System (PDS) in some states; low public spending on health and nutrition; and poor awareness. Hunger is thus a problem of access and distribution, not just production.