Regional Economic Disparities in India

Balanced regional development has always been an essential component of the Indian development strategy in order to ensure the unity and integrity of the nation. Since not all parts of the country are equally well endowed to take advantage of growth opportunities, and since historical inequalities have not been eliminated, planned intervention is required to ensure that large regional imbalances do not occur. Successive plans have stressed the need to develop backward regions of the country. In promoting regional balanced development, public sector enterprises were located in most backward areas of the country. It has helped these areas in terms of development of infrastructure, employment opportunities, and growth of ancillary industries to a limited extent. With a view to addressing the problem of regional inequalities, a new initiative in the form of the Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana (RSVY) was operationalised in the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-07). It aimed at focused developmental programmes, primarily to fill gaps, for backward areas which would help reduce imbalances, speed up development and help these areas to overcome poverty, besides facilitating the States to move up the ladder of reforms. The present work describes and examines various dimensions of regional economic disparities in India.