Dimapur: A report on income disparity in Nagaland has indicated a significant income inequality in the state, with a Gini coefficient of 0.46.According to the report, the Gini coefficient for rural Nagaland stands at 0.42, while urban areas in the state have a slightly higher coefficient of 0.44, suggesting that the urban income inequality is marginally higher than that of rural income inequality.The report was released by Nagaland chief secretary Sentiyanger Imchen at the Nagaland civil secretariat in Kohima on Thursday.The report is the outcome of a project undertaken as part of the central sector scheme of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, support for statistical strengthening sub-scheme, which was conducted in collaboration with Hyderabad University.The field survey for the report was undertaken between Oct 2024 and Dec 2024, and the reported data pertains to 2024.Data was collected from 4,396 households across the state to prepare the report. In urban areas, 1,315 households from 60 wards were surveyed, while 3,080 households were surveyed from 140 villages in rural areas. Among the districts, Longleng tops the high income inequality with a Gini coefficient of 0.492, while Phek has the lowest income disparity with a Gini coefficient of 0.366.The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality, the wealth inequality, or the consumption inequality within a nation or a social group. A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality, where all income or wealth values are the same. In contrast, a Gini coefficient of 1 reflects maximal inequality among values, where a single individual has all of the income while others have none.
