Which state has topped the ranking in the Fiscal Health Index-2025 of NITI Aayog for the financial year 2022-23?
- (a)Odisha
- (b)Goa
- (c)Kerala
- (d)Chhattisgarh
Correct — A, Odisha.
NITI Aayog's first Fiscal Health Index, released in January 2025, scores 18 major States on their finances for the financial year 2022-23. Odisha finished first on the composite index with a score of 67.8.
Its score of 67.8 puts it clearly ahead of the field: Chhattisgarh follows at 55.2 and Goa at 53.6. The composite pulls five separate sub-indices into one number, and Odisha's placing rests on its Debt Index and Debt Sustainability standing.
The 2025 in this report's title is its year of publication; the accounts it ranks are for 2022-23. Index titles are not consistent — the SDG India Index 2020-21 is named for its reference period instead — so read the report's stated reference year rather than its title.
- (b)Goa — Goa sits behind Odisha on the same composite index, scoring 53.6 against Odisha's 67.8.
Goa is the right answer to third place on the Fiscal Health Index 2025, not to the top spot. A gap of more than fourteen points separates the two, so the two placings are not close.
- (c)Kerala — Kerala falls in the lowest-scoring group of the Fiscal Health Index 2025, placed with Punjab, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. NITI Aayog groups them as Aspirational States; Kerala's own weak points are Debt Sustainability and Quality of Expenditure.
Kerala is the right answer to the State that topped NITI Aayog's SDG India Index 2020-21. Strong human-development outcomes and strong fiscal health are separate things, and this question asks about the second.
- (d)Chhattisgarh — Chhattisgarh is the nearest miss. It scored 55.2, behind Odisha's 67.8.
Chhattisgarh is the right answer to second place on the Fiscal Health Index 2025. If you remembered only that a mineral-rich State led the table, Odisha and Chhattisgarh are hard to separate — the score gap between them is the thing worth fixing in memory.
The Fiscal Health Index is a composite ranking of State finances published by NITI Aayog. It converts several separate fiscal measures into one score out of 100 so that States can be compared and ranked.
Its first edition builds five sub-indices — Quality of Expenditure, Revenue Mobilisation, Fiscal Prudence, Debt Index and Debt Sustainability — from audited State accounts, then combines them into the headline number.
Quality of Expenditure asks how much of the spending creates assets rather than meeting running costs. Revenue Mobilisation asks how far a State funds itself from its own taxes instead of transfers.
Debt Index and Debt Sustainability look at the stock of borrowing against the size of the economy and at whether that stock is on a stable path.
State governments account for a large share of general government spending in India, and they borrow to finance part of it. A composite score gives a single handle on which States are paying for that spending in a way they can sustain.
The index also sits inside a wider habit at NITI Aayog of ranking States on composite indices — on sustainable development goals, on energy and climate, on export preparedness. The publishing body is the same; the subject measured is not.
For an exam, that family resemblance is the point. Questions about a State 'topping a NITI Aayog index' are only answerable once you fix which index is meant.
- NITI Aayog released the first edition of its Fiscal Health Index in January 2025.
- The index covers 18 major States and is based on their finances for the financial year 2022-23.
- Odisha topped the composite index with a score of 67.8.
- Chhattisgarh was placed second with 55.2 and Goa third with 53.6.
- The five sub-indices are Quality of Expenditure, Revenue Mobilisation, Fiscal Prudence, Debt Index and Debt Sustainability.
- Kerala was grouped with the lowest-scoring States, alongside Punjab, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.
- Kerala topped a different NITI Aayog ranking, the SDG India Index 2020-21.
All four options are among the 18 States covered. Scores are for the financial year 2022-23.
- Reading the 2025 in the title as the reference year. The data is for the financial year 2022-23.
- Transferring Kerala's SDG India Index topper status to a fiscal ranking. Different index, different subject, different result.
- Attributing the Fiscal Health Index to the Finance Commission or the Reserve Bank. NITI Aayog publishes it.
- Settling for 'a mineral-rich State' and then picking Chhattisgarh, which came second, instead of Odisha.
- Treating the sub-indices as interchangeable jargon. Quality of Expenditure and Revenue Mobilisation measure different things and a State can be strong in one and weak in the other.
- Assuming the index covers every State. It ranks 18 major States.
This item asks for the topper directly. Each of the other three options is a State that stands high on a NITI Aayog ranking — two of them on this index, one on the SDG India Index.
The same fact can also be tested by asking for the reference year or the number of States covered, which rewards anyone who read past the headline.
Or by giving a list of sub-indices with one plausible intruder, or by pairing index names with the body that publishes them and asking which pairing is wrong.
CAPF_GAI_2021_Q1202021The same shape — which State ranked first on a NITI Aayog composite index — and the two questions even share two option names, Kerala and Goa. What differs is the index: that one asks about the SDG India Index 2020-21, where Kerala was the topper, while this one asks about fiscal health, where Kerala sits in the lowest-scoring group and Odisha leads.
CAPF_GAI_2022_Q1122022Also on a NITI Aayog State-ranking index, but it tests the classification bands rather than the topper — which label is not one the SDG India Index uses. Same publishing body and the same habit of sorting States into named tiers; the UKPSC item wants a single rank instead of the vocabulary of the scale.
UPPSC_2022_PRE_GSI_Q972022Again a NITI Aayog index topper question, on the State Energy and Climate Index. It differs in asking for a set of three leading States rather than one, and in its subject, energy and climate performance, which the Fiscal Health Index does not measure. Both items reward keeping the rankings apart instead of carrying a State's name across from one to another.
- practice — not a real PYQ
NITI Aayog's Fiscal Health Index 2025 ranks States on the basis of their finances for which financial year?
- (a)2019-20
- (b)2020-21
- (c)2022-23
- (d)2024-25
Answerc — The first edition of the index is built on State finance data for 2022-23, which the report states as its reference year.2019-20 and 2020-21 fall earlier than that year, and 2024-25 had not yet closed when the report was released in January 2025, so no full-year accounts existed for it.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is not a sub-index of NITI Aayog's Fiscal Health Index 2025?
- (a)Quality of Expenditure
- (b)Revenue Mobilisation
- (c)Human Capital Formation
- (d)Debt Sustainability
Answerc — The index is built from Quality of Expenditure, Revenue Mobilisation, Fiscal Prudence, Debt Index and Debt Sustainability.Options (a), (b) and (d) are three of those five.
Human Capital Formation names an education and health idea, not one of the fiscal components used here.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In NITI Aayog's Fiscal Health Index 2025, which State was placed immediately after Odisha in the overall ranking?
- (a)Goa
- (b)Jharkhand
- (c)Chhattisgarh
- (d)Kerala
Answerc — Chhattisgarh took second place with 55.2, behind Odisha's 67.8.Goa follows in third with 53.6 and Jharkhand comes after Goa, so neither is immediately behind the topper.
Kerala sits in the lowest-scoring group and is nowhere near the top of the table.