This book highlights the development disparities in India and considers three complex areas of development – economic wellbeing, human progress and agricultural development – over a period of forty years since the 1970s. The novelty of the book lies in is its rich analytical foundation and the use of sophisticated statistical and economic tools to determine the causes of socioeconomic disparity between Indian states. The trends of inequality, polarization and disparity are highlighted with regard to income, human development indicators and agricultural production and productivity. The book also identifies the factors underlying divergence in economic and social activity in India and provides policy suggestions for bringing about more balanced and inclusive development in India.
Development, Displacement and Disparity: The last quarter of the twentieth century. The book is a collection of essays that tackle a crucial theme in developmental economics and planning. The essays: - look at the inequities and disparities of national resource distribution, and the need for a more equitable distribution of national developmental gains. - reflect a growing concern with many economic theorists over uneven regional development and the need for these issues to be looked at seriously, with a view to attend to them in the best possible ways. - are on the one hand a theoretical exposition of the economics of public goods supply, but on the other, they point to the lag between theoretical and academic understanding and practical initiative. - study the areas, evaluate the models of development and suggest new areas of research in development planning.
The book critically examines the high growth trajectory in India, particularly since the late 1980s, a period which is characterized by increasing inequality. Through various studies from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh -- a state more populous than Brazil and with a GDP comparable to Bangladesh -- it sheds light on the link between growth and inequality in emerging economies. The slow pace of any upward movement in terms of various development indicators in low-income Indian states is due to a number of factors, including their historical disadvantages. Over a period of time, this has resulted in widening disparities, both between different regions of these states, and between these states and other more prosperous Indian states. The book provides a holistic, yet critical, region-wise analysis of the achievements of Uttar Pradesh compared to other states and to India as a whole, in the context of indicators of inclusive development, namely, growth, employment, poverty, infrastructure, agriculture, industry, education and health. Based on the latest data and sophisticated analysis methods, it assesses inequality and development disparities, clearly identifying three major challenges that poorer states face in redressing poverty and expanding inclusive growth - increasing economic opportunities, empowering poor and marginalised groups to avail new opportunities in a rapidly changing world, and ensuring an effective safety net to reduce vulnerability. The book suggests strategies for promoting high and sustained economic growth, and highlights the significance of broadening social inclusiveness through greater and more rapid access to economic and social opportunities, and building strong social safety nets to protect the chronically poor and mitigate their risks and vulnerabilities with the help of good governance and institutions. With contributions from leading scholars from the region, it is a valuable resource for researchers working in the area of growth and inequality, as well as for policy makers from developing economies around the globe.
We discuss regional disparities in economic performance and living standards. We first set out some key facts, and provide a conceptual framework to help analyze whether such disparities are efficient, or instead reflect market and/or policy failures. We examine whether policy attempts to reduce regional disparities necessarily involve a trade-off between equity and efficiency. We then investigate whether policymakers should focus on boosting the economic performance of lagging regions—or, conversely, accept the presence of regional disparities, and instead assist households in lagging regions through transfer payments, investments in education, health, and other basic services, and by facilitating out-migration.
This book reviews the fulfillment of two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), namely poverty and inequality, in the Indian subcontinent. It examines the complex interplay among development, inequality and poverty in relation to corruption, environmental resource management, agricultural adjustment to climate change and institutional arrangements, with a special focus on the Northeastern region of the country. The topics covered offer a blend of theoretical arguments and empirical data with regard to the three main themes of the book, while also providing agricultural and environmental perspectives. The book also provides guidelines for policy initiatives for harnessing the region’s potential in the areas of industry, trade, sustainable use of mineral, forest and other natural resources, nature-based tourism through proper infrastructure development, and resolving land issues to achieve inclusive development.In addition to introducing some new questions on the development-ethnic conflict interface, it uses sophisticated tools such as the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method in consumption expenditure to show the endowment, and return to endowment effects; and techniques like spatial correlation-regression to analyze regional variation, co-integration, vector autoregression, the panel data technique and the adaptation index to climate change, to understand socio-economic complexities and the effect of the concerned variables on entrepreneurship and human development.The book offers a timely contribution to our understanding of major MDGs and highlights their successes and failures. It also includes analytical frameworks that are key to future policy initiatives. Further, it disseminates approaches and methods that improve livelihoods and standards of living through poverty reduction and promoting inclusive development along with sustainable utilization of available natural resources. Putting forward various ideas for creating a more sustainable future, it inspires and encourages readers to pursue further studies to address the gaps that still remain.
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.
This book emphasizes the need for experimenting with more deliberate and rigorous policy processes to attain balanced regional development, which can promote both equity and efficiency in India’s development discourse. The institutional mechanisms for dealing with regional imbalance in India have not been very successful so far. With rising discrepancies in development, demand for autonomy continues along with a new dimension of regionalism arising from submerged identity along with political and economic aspirations, which demanded new channels for solution. So far, attempts to create space for autonomy have possibly not optimally accommodated the conceptual mechanisms like equity and democratic process. Thus democratizing policy process using six pillars of voice: knowledge, objective, fundamental values, implementation framework and public awareness can ensure a better policy outcome for dealing with the persistent challenges of regional disparity in India. This book further focuses on the need for democratizing the policy process for regional development through discussion and inclusion. Such a transition needs innovation in policy regime, which can be attained through following six pillars (i) Democratic voice of stakeholders in policy development and implementation; (ii) Clear policy objectives that advance the common good, based on voice; (iii) Unbiased, sound and comprehensive knowledge and data bases. (iv) Consistency with constitutional values; (v) A sound implementation framework ensuring user-friendliness, transparency and rationality of decision-making processes, effective grievance redress, clear accountability and independent evaluation; (vi) Public awareness and support of policies with relevant and public participation in implementation.
