Increasing inter-State disparities across India have received some attention. What can be done to ensure that the trickle down benefits of growth percolate to all regions, and the backward areas are not bypassed? But while policy intervention is indeed needed to tackle the problems of poverty and deprivation, indentification of backward regions needs to go beyond State boundaries.The attempt in this volume is to take this identification down to the level of the districts and identification is pegged of the Millennium Development Goals and is based on six indicators-income poverty (poverty ratios), hunger, infant mortality rate, immunization, literacy rate and enrollment ratios. In addition, gender disparity is highlighted through female and male literacy rates, but not actually used in the process of identifying backwardness. Data used are estimates for 2001. A list of 69 backward districts is thrown up-26 in Bihar, 13 in UP, 10 in Jharkhand, 10 in Orissa, 6 in MP, 3 in Arunachal and 1 in Karnataka. These are India’s mostdisadvantaged districts and the most backward. Geographically, they are contiguous to another 70-odd districts that are also fairly backward.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Bibek Debroy
Bibek Debroy is Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS), Rajive Gandhi Foundation, New Delhi. He is a professional economist and was educated in Presidency College (Calcutta), Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College (Chambridge). He has worked at Presidency College (Calcutta), Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (Pune), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (Delhi), National Council of Applied Economic Research (Delhi) and as consultant, Department of Economic affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. He was also the Director for a project known as LARGE, set up by the Ministry of Finance and UNDP to Consulting Editor with Financial Express. Bibek Debroy's special interests are international trade in particular the WTOI, law reform and the political economy of liberalization in India. He has been listed in many bibliographies and has been a member of several government committees.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Laveesh Bhandari
Laveesh Bhandari completed his Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University, USA in 1996. He received the Exim Bank Best Thesis in International Economics award in 1996. Previously he was awarded the Hite Fellowship for his work on International Finance. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi and was also the Managing Editor of the Journal of emerging Market Finance. He worked on Industry and Infrastructure development issues at NCAER between 1996 and 2000 and since has been leading socio-economic research at Indicus Analytics.
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