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The HCI has three components which include survival, as measured by under-5 mortality rates, expected years of quality-adjusted school and health environment using two proxies of adult survival rates and the rate of stunting for children under age 5. 

"There are serious reservations about the advisability and utility of this exercise of constructing HCI. There are major methodological weaknesses, besides substantial data gaps," a finance ministry statement said. 

The government said for the schooling parameter, though quantity is assessed using enrolment rates reported by Unesco, quality is gauged using harmonised test scores from major international student achievement testing programmes. 

"Due to lack of availability of an authoritative and uniform test score, about nine different test scores and systems using varying methodology have been claimed to have been harmonized by the World Bank. None of the nine systems cover more than 100 countries, with some having very limited regional coverage. This makes the methodology quite complex and nonuniform," the statement said. 

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