New Delhi, April 3 (IANS): Sikkim was declared the best state, whereas Gujarat slipped from 17th to 24th rank in human development, according to the India Public Policy Report (IPPR) 2014.

The report, released Wednesday by the Oxford University Press, found that health was directly linked to sanitation coverage.

"Sikkim, which has 100 percent sanitation coverage, showed very few cases of diarrhea," said A.K. Shiva Kumar, advisor, Unicef India, who attended the event as panellist.

On Gujarat's deterioration in rank, Abhijit Sen, member of 14th Finance Commission who released the report, said: "This was due to the infrastructure index. This happened not because Gujarat did poorly on infrastructure but because other states, which had poor infrastructure to begin with, showed marked improvement."

The report, compiled by Rajeev Malhotra, executive director, Centre for Development and Finance, Jindal School of Government and Policy (JSGP), observed that geographically smaller states performed better than larger ones, although they offered lesser employment opportunities compared to the larger ones.

It further said that states which have been bifurcated from a bigger state were found to be doing consistently better than their parent states. Significantly, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were found to be performing better than Madhya Pradesh and Bihar respectively.

The report used four indices, including social and livelihood opportunity, rule of the law and infrastructure, to rank the performance of the Indian states.

Attending the event, Malhotra said the IPPR was a first of its kind report, that sought to create an independent platform for bringing together state-of-the-art policy, research and analysis on issues of policy relevance of India.

He said the IPPR, a joint publication of the JSGP, the O.P. Jindal Global University and the Oxford University Press, sought to contribute to policy advocacy and improving public policy effectiveness in India.