With the need for international comparisons becoming pressing, income inequality has risen tothe top of the development agenda across the globe. Most of the literature on inequality has focused on inequality of outcomes, such as income inequality or wealth inequality arising from various economic, demographic, and social processes which impact distribution of income. However, the discourse around income inequality does not reflect (in)equality of opportunity (basic amenities, healthcare, education, access to justice and socio-economic security), which arises because of the circumstances beyond an individual’s control, including gender, family background, ethnicity, place of birth, etc. These documents of evidence while informative are often criticised for not measuring inequalities that are more relevant from a social or moral perspective (Lefranc. A et. al, 2007). The concept of equality of opportunity is rooted in the Rawlsian philosophical tradition, whereby people are expected to construct the society in a way that they would be happy for their position in the society to be determined by a random draw — Rawls (1971) and Dworkin (1981). He argued that social positions should be formally open to all and that each person should have a fair chance of attaining them. Over the years, with the development of literature, there now exists multiple interpretations of inequality of opportunity that arises because of factors or circumstances beyond an individual’s control. These include accessibility and availability of basic resources (Dworkin, 1981), primary goods, such as basic liberties and rights, access to political and other offices (Rawls, 1971), public goods, quality of education or access to labour market opportunities, gender, family background, ethnicity, place of birth, etc. Against this background, the objective of this report is to create an index to capture inequality among households and individuals by looking at access to various opportunities (capabilities), thus measuring uneven distribution of deprivations across the states and union territories in India. The definition of “Access” in this report is conceptualised to encompass the “4As”, namely 1) Availability 2) Affordability 3) Approachability and 4) Appropriateness. These four dimensions of “Access” are not only critical in addressing inequalities in accessing healthcare services but can be expanded to cover various other sectors, including basic amenities, education, justice and address socio-economic inequalities. The AEI framework illustrated below, therefore, measures five key pillars across 23 broad categories1 crucial to social and human development, each of which relates to an important opportunity for improving the overall quality of life and has been found to be critical in reducing inequality. This multidimensional framework serves as a benchmark in assessing inequity in spatial and non-spatial access to social and economic opportunities across the states.