New Delhi, Jul 12 (IANS): India's overall Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) score has shot up to 71 in 2023-24, compared to 66 in 2020-21 on the back of significant progress on eliminating poverty, providing decent work, economic growth, climate action and life on land, according to the NITI Aayog's SDG India Index released on Friday.

Targeted interventions by the Government such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Ujjwala, Swachh Bharat, Jan Dhan, Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY, Ayushman Arogya Mandir, PM-Mudra Yojana, Saubhgaya, Start-up India etc. had an impact and led to rapid improvement, according to the NITI Aayog report.

All states have shown an improvement in the score on the NITI Aayog index.

Between 2018 and 2023-24, the fastest moving States are Uttar Pradesh (increase in score by 25), followed by J&K (21), Uttarakhand (19), Sikkim (18), Haryana (17), Assam, Tripura and Punjab (16 each), Madhya Pradesh and Odisha (15 each), the report states.

As many as 32 States and UTs are in the front-runner category with 10 new entrants - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu

Scores for States range from 57 to 79 in 2023-24, marking a substantial improvement from the year 2018 range of 42 to 69.

There has been significant progress in Goals 1 (No Poverty), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 13 (Climate Action) and 15 (Life on Land)

Goal 13 (Climate Action) records the highest increase in score from 54 in 2020-21 to 67 in 2023-24 followed by Goal 1 (No Poverty) from 60 to 72.

"Targeted intervention by the government has helped India achieve significant improvements across 16 goals set under the SDGs," NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam said.

"India is not only on track and ahead of others in achieving most of the targets under SDGs, and the government hopes to achieve targets before 2030 across some of these goals,” he added.