Regional disparities in the levels of development in Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

The level of development of various districts of Uttar Pradesh was estimated with the help of composite index based on optimum combination of thirty eight economic indicators. All the sixty three districts of the State were included in the study. The data for the year 1991-92 on thirty eight economic indicators were used. Eighteen indicators were directly concerned with agricultural development, seven indicators depicted the progress of development in industrial sector and the rest thirteen indicators presented the level of development in infrastructural service sector. The level of development was examined separately for agricultural, industrial and overall socio-economic sectors. The district of Ghaziabad was found to rank first and that of Chamoli was the last in the overall socio-economic development. Wide disparities in the level of development has been observed among different regions of the State and the western region had been found to be better developed as compared to other regions of the State. Positive significant association was found between the levels of development in the agricultural and industrial sectors indicating that the growth and progress of agriculture and industry had been going hand in hand in the State. Six districts covering about 9 per cent area and little more than 10 per cent population of the State, were found to be better developed whereas twenty three districts having 41 per cent area and 35 per cent population were categorised as low developed districts. For bringing about uniform regional development, potential targets for various indicators had been estimated for poorly developed districts. The study revealed that the low developed districts required improvements of various dimensions in most of the indicators for enhancing the level of overall socio-economic development.