Physical Quality of Life Index (P.Q.L.I) was developed by famous economist Morris David in 1979 for 23 developed and developing countries. Morris David used the following three indicators to prepare a composite index known as Physical Quality of Life Index:
- Life Expectant Rate (L.E.I)
- Infant Mortality Rate (I.M.I)
- Basic Literacy Rate (B.L.I)
Life Expectant Rate (L.E.I)
Life expectancy means average number of year a person is expected to live. As per census of 2011, it is 66.8 years in India.
Infant Mortality Rate (I.M.I)
It refers to the number of infants dying within one year of their birth out of every 1000 births. As per census report of 2011, it is 47 per 1000. Higher infant mortality is harmful for economic development.
Basic Literacy Rate (B.L.I)
Any person above the age of 7 year who can read and write in any one language with an ability to understand it is considered as literate. As per census 2011, it is 74.04% in India.
For each of the above indicator, the performance of individual country is rated on a scale of 1 to 100 where 1 represents the worst performance and 100 represent the best performance. P.Q.L.I is then constructed by averaging these three indicators giving equal weight to each of them.
Morris David has given following formula to obtain P.Q.L.I
P.Q.L.I = L.E.I.+ I.M.I.+ B.L.I. / 3
