Regional disparities in economic development in the postreform period

Abstract

Economic wellbeing of a nation or a region or state depends upon its rate of economic development. The earliest concept of development was interpreted in terms of growth of output over time and later in terms of per capita output. Economic welfare or wellbeing of a people does not merely depend upon the rate of development but also on its distributive aspect. It has been seen worldwide that development outcomes are not equally distributed among states, causing disparities and imbalances in economic development. Regional disparity denotes regional dualism or regional income or growth differentials. The term poles de croisscurce in French literature defines regional disparity as the presence of socially and economically advanced and backward regions between nations or different states within a nation. Disparity has also been defined as the condition or fact of being unequal as in age, rank or degree. Synonyms for disparity are inequality, unlikeness, disproportion and difference. In different parts of the country sharp differences are found to exist in physical features and resource endowment across states which are responsible for development disparities within countries. The prevalence of regional disparities is a common phenomenon and present in both developed and developing countries. Even the richest country of the world, U.S.A., has the problem of unbalanced regional development and many small and rich countries (such as Italy and France) and socialist countries such as Russia and China are also faced with this problem (Koropecky 1972). Different regions of a country grow at very unequal rates, resulting in inter-regional and intra-regional imbalances, which in turn give rise to socio economic problems. Many countries which are developed today, stressed regional development in fifties, though, in western countries regional development began to receive attention in the 1930 s due to welfare considerations (Nath 1970). Regional disparity or regional dualism is an important feature of the Indian economy.