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REIMAGINING INDIA
age in the eighties, but by the year 2005,
all have gone above the national average.
This is basically due to the increasing
share of private investment in these
states and in stark contrast, states in the
backward group experienced relative
deterioration in terms of per capita income
and this specific deterioration was
more marked after the reforms. Table-1
also shows the degree of disparity in per
capita income among these states,
wherein Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have
the greatest degree of disparity, in comparison
to the forward states. The differences
in per capita income between
forward and backward states were minimum
in 1980-81 and maximum in
2005-2006.
Percentage Of Poor
The percentage of poverty is worth to
discuss while analyzing regional disparities
in India. The overall percentage of
poverty has decreased from 51.3 percent
in 1977-78 to 38.9 in 1987-88 and reached
to the level of 36.0% in 1993-94. Now in
2004-05 fewer Indians were living in
poverty than in 1999-2000, with official
data showing poverty declined by 4.3 per
cent during this period. Poverty in India
has declined to 21.8 per cent in 2004-05
from 26.1 per cent in 1999-2000.While
there has been great progress in reducing
poverty, it has been far from even,
and these data masks large regional differences.
Based on NSS data, Orissa was
the poorest state with 39.9 per cent of
people living below poverty line followed
by Jharkhand (34.8 per cent) and Bihar
(32.5 per cent). Poverty levels were low
in Chandigarh (3.8 per cent people living
below poverty line), Jammu and
Kashmir (4.2 per cent) and Punjab
(5.2 percent).
Among the other major states, percentage
of people living below poverty
line was 15 per cent in Assam, 12.5 per
cent in Gujarat, 9.9 per cent in Haryana,
17.4 per cent in Karnataka, 11.4 per cent
in Kerala, 32.4 per cent in Madhya
Pradesh, 17.5 per cent in Rajasthan, 17.8
per cent in Tamil Nadu and 20.6 per cent
in West Bengal. National trends in poverty
reduction have been dominated by
rapid growth in Forward states only
other regions have seen little or no
change. This is clearly presented in Table-2
which is showing the
percentage of poverty share
among different states of
India. The main beneficiaries
of the overall decline in
poverty in the country have
been the fast growing States
in the forward group. In
contrast, the share of the poor in the
States in the backward group has gone
up significantly. As the table indicates,
Table-2 Percentage Share Of Poor
each one of the States in this group has
now increasing share of poor from 1980s
to 2000. These show that economic
growth of forward states is more than
the backward states due to market
mechanism.
Average Monthly Per-capita
Consumption Expenditure
After 15 years of reforms Average
Monthly Per Capita consumption Expenditure
among different states is still
showing wide disparities. For the forward
states, it seems the formula of more
market and less government
is working well, but
for poor states it is working
in opposite direction,
where government gives
incentives to establish industries
in these backward
states, industrialist are
only interested in profit maximization.
All the states in the forward categories
have PCCE more than Rs.1000, whereas
States 1983-84 1987-88 1993-94 1999-2000
Forward Group
Andhra Pradesh 5.1 5.22 4.81 4.57
Karnataka 4.64 5.17 4.88 4.01
Maharashtra 9.01 9.65 9.53 8.76
Tamil Nadu 8.05 7.53 6.31 5.01
Backward Group
Bihar 14.31 13.71 15.4 16.36
Madhya Pradesh 8.61 8.61 9.32 11.47
Orissa 5.62 5.4 5.01 6.5
Rajasthan 3.93 4.65 4.01 3.14
Uttar Pradesh 17.24 17.47 18.87 20.36
All India 100 100 100 100
Source: Planning Commission, Government of India.
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