Regional Disparities

Abstract

Regional disparities in India has been one of the most critical development issue that has attracted concerns from almost all quarters, be it policy makers, policy implementers, academicians or the society at large. The development experience of India, since Independence,has followed a complex trajectory given the sheer size of the country, its colonial past,differential geographical resource endowment across states, changing economic and policy newlineenvironments and a plural society with citizens belonging to different caste, class, ethnic,religious or cultural groups. While the Indian economy has made considerable progress in the recent years, mainly after the 1991 structural reforms and has been hailed as one of the leading newlineeconomic powers in the developing world, the distributional aspect accruing from this progress is far from being just and equal. The last few years have seen accelerating economic growth on the one hand and widening of disparities on the other. Inequalities between and within regions of the country are being observed not only in terms of their differential macroeconomic parameters but also in relation to various demographic and social development indicators such as health, education, employment etc. In the Indian context, the embeddedness of social relations and social structures has an even greater bearing on perpetuating a hierarchized society. Given this context, newlinethe thesis has sought to address the question of regional disparities in India - how these arise,continue to persist and what can be done to iron them out. The thesis is based on an analysis of secondary data sources for 15 major states in India covering a period of 44 years from 1970-71 to 2013-14. Since regional development is a multivariate newlineconcept, tracing its trajectory over time requires analysis of time series data of certain key socio- newlineeconomic variables that are integral to an understanding of the development dynamics. newline