Analyzing the progress of Indian states chasing sustainable development goals using complex network framework

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a critical global framework for addressing challenges like poverty, inequality, climate change, etc. They encourage a holistic approach integrating economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability to create a better future. We aim to examine India's responsibility in achieving the SDGs by recognizing the contributions of its diverse states in the federal structure of governance. As the nodal agency in India, the NITI Aayog's existing SDG index, using various socioeconomic indicators to determine the performance across different goals, serves as a foundation for assessing each state's progress. Building on the seminal works of Hidalgo and Hausmann (2009) and Tachhella et al. (2012), which introduced the economic complexity/fitness index, Sciarra et al. (2020) proposed the SDGs-Generalized Economic Complexity (GENEPY) framework to quantify "complexity" by computing "ranks for states" and "scores for goals", treating them as part of a complex bipartite network. In this paper, we apply the SDGs-GENEPY, to evaluate the progress and evolution of Indian states and union territories over several years. This enables us to identify each state's capacity (and rank) in achieving the SDGs. We can interpret these complexity scores as "centrality measures" of a complex bipartite network of the states and the goals. This enhances our understanding of the complex relationship between state capabilities and the achievability of SDGs within the Indian context and enables data-driven policy-making.