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This is the first of a two-part series on inequality in India. This article draws on the Access (In)Equality Index (AEI) 2026, produced by the Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES) at O.P. Jindal Global University. All figures cited are from the AEI 2026 report.

Ask which Indian states give their residents the best access to a school, a clinic, clean water, a bank or a court, and the answer usually comes back as a list of the wealthiest states. Still, that answer only holds up in part – the missing part is where the most useful lessons lie.

The Access (In)Equality Index (AEI) 2026, produced by the Centre for New Economics Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University, measures something most state rankings leave out. It asks how far residents can actually reach the services and opportunities on which a decent life depends.

To answer that, the index draws on 60 indicators across five pillars, namely basic amenities, education, health, socio-economic security and justice.

The last of these, which covers police, courts, prisons and legal aid, rarely sits alongside the other four in a single measure of development. The pillars are combined so that weakness in one cannot simply be hidden by strength in another, and states and Union Territories are scored separately.

Read the AEI 2026 against each state’s income, and a striking picture emerges.

Money matters, and it matters a great deal. Income per head accounts for roughly three-quarters of the differences in access between states. On average, a state with twice the per capita income of another scores about 0.11 points higher on the index. This is on a scale where the distance from the best state to the worst is about a third of a point.

Also read: Why Inequality Looks Both Different and Similar in India and China

The relationship holds even when the two smallest and........

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