Estate Social Welfare Development Indices

Rationale

Although social development in the estates has improved substantially in the last couple of decades, these advances have been uneven in several domains. On the one hand, the development programme did not address some aspects of social development—specifically those aspects relating to the use of human capabilities; on the other hand, progress in the areas that were covered was not uniform. The sustainability of a social development program for a community depends on its ability to address all different aspects of social development. If not, the risk of set backs in the development process, and the dependence of the community on outside assistance will increase.

Objectives

A better understanding of the various contours of social development in the estate sector could help planners formulate policy that ensures the sustainability of future social development programmes and aid them in allocating limited resources to reap maximum benefits. This study aimed to help this process by developing a set of social development indices for the estate sector.