Kerala, with lower per capita income has a better human development ranking than Punjab. However, it would be wrong to say that per capita income is not a useful criterion at all. Per capita income is certainly not the only criterion and it has its limitations. But this does not imply that it is not useful at all. To counter the inadequacy of this average, the human development index is used. The human development index uses a combination of development factors (such as health, education, income) for comparison. Thus, per capita income is one of the development factors, and cannot be done away with. Also, per capita income is useful for comparing the money index of states.
