Regional Disparities in India's Socio-Economic Development

Regional imbalances in a country may be natural due to unequal distribution of natural resources and/or man-made in the sense of neglect of some regions and preference for others for investment and infrastructural facilities. India's successive Five Year Plans have stressed the need to develop backward regions of the country. In promoting regional balanced development, public sector enterprises were located in backward areas of the country during the early phase of economic planning. In spite of pro-backward areas policies and programmes, considerable economic and social inequalities exist among different States of India, as reflected in differences in per capita State Domestic Product. While income growth performance has diverged, there is welcome evidence of some convergence in education and health indicators across the states. This book contains 14 research papers authored by experts on the subject. They provide deep insights into the various dimensions of inter-state and intra-state economic and social inequalities in India.