Regional Inequalities in Economic Development

The process of economic development is spatially not uniform in the world. It varies between regions and also within a region. The existence of regional inequalities in the level of development is one of the basic structural characteristics of a developing country like India. As a natural corollary of “growth with social justice”, balanced regional development has constituted an important aspect of India’s developmental objectives since independence. Several attempts have been made to analyse regional variations in different areas. However, a little concern has been shown in assessing regional variations in quality of life. The present work attempts to fill this gap by preparing the composite index of quality of life. While building composite index for the different sectors of economy, classification of variables is done into three classes viz. input, intermediate and output variables. This study also attempts to explain the relationship among the above three types of variables. In the present study, clustering exercise has also been attempted with the object of grouping homogeneous districts in same cluster. Development clusters are formed at five points of time 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001.