85% of Northeast Districts Now SDG Front Runners

India's North East Region has also achieved a very high achievement level in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) where 85% of districts are in the Front Runner category according to the recently released NER District SDG Index 2023–24. The index was developed by NITI Aayog, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDoNER), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and analyzes district-level performance on 15 of the 17 SDGs.

A district is a Front Runner when it has scored 65–99.99. Although none have achieved Achiever status (100+ score), the change from 62% Front Runners in 2021–22 to 85% in this index indicates progress across zones.

The best performing district is Hnahthial of Mizoram with 81.43 marks. The worst performing district is Longding of Arunachal Pradesh with a mark of 58.71. The index tracking covered collectively 121 districts of the eight Northeast states, and captured performance on the basis of 84 indicators drawn from state and nation-wide level data systems.

The outliers are Sikkim, Tripura, and Mizoram, all of whom whose evaluated districts were Front Runners. Tripura's Gomati and Sikkim's Gangtok were among the top 10. The intra-state variation of 5.5 points for Sikkim districts was low to measure homogeneous development within the state. The highest intra-state variation of 15.07 points was of Nagaland.

The assessment was done on SDG-targeted indicators in education, health, gender, water and sanitation, and labor. Notable progress was seen for SDG 4 (Quality Education) by 80 Front Runner districts from 36; SDG 5 (Gender Equality), to 112 districts from 71; SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), to 114 districts; and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), to 111 districts level.

Even here, SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and SDG 13 (Climate Action) trail behind. Forty-nine districts are Aspirants in climate action, but the percentage of districts within the low-performing group for reducing inequalities rose from 12 to 33. This implies a continued failure to increase environmental and social equity within the region.

The best-performing districts are Hnahthial, Champhai, and Kolasib of Mizoram; Gomati, West Tripura, and South Tripura of Tripura; Mokokchung, Kohima, and Dimapur of Nagaland; and Gangtok of Sikkim. State-level estimates also identified Dibrugarh (Assam), Lower Dibang Valley (Arunachal Pradesh), and Imphal West (Manipur) as high-performing.

State performance abstractions had a steady improvement trend in Tripura and Sikkim. The worst-performing group of districts at 6.5 points in Tripura reflects effective implementation of government schemes. The highest-rated region of all, Mizoram, had effective performances on gender equality indicators, power availability, and infrastructure.

The index is structured to provoke competitive federalism so as to facilitate comparisons across districts so that governments may look at where they would introduce targeted interventions. Statistics employed in this edition are disaggregated more than in earlier editions, culled from 41 nation-level and 43 state-level information systems.

Though collective promotion in access promotion, social equity and greenery disparities for a symptom of shortage of effort. Simple directions should be given to climate-high-priority sectors and disparity reduction for achieving 2030 Agenda targets.

The NER District SDG Index 2023–24 will act as a future point of reference for policy-making and regional planning towards easing inclusive development in every district in Northeast India.

Source
According to NER District SDG Index 2023–24, released jointly by NITI Aayog, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDoNER), and UNDP. First released by Nirmal Menon, 13 July 2025.