The Geography of Post 1991 Indian

Economy

Laveesh Bhandari

Aarti Khare

Indicus Analytics, New Delhi

(May 2002)

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 Abstract
The economic geography of India has been changing in line with a changing economy in
the post-reform period. This paper uses sub-State (regional) level data to study
economic growth in the post reform period. Using the latest available data (for the late
nineties) at the sub-State-level we find that a very clear break is observable between the
eastern and western parts of India. That is, the western part of India has had an
increase in its share in the economy as against the eastern part that has lost out during
this period.
Unlike others, this study covers all the 78 regions in 35 States of India. The
smaller States that are generally left out in State level studies are covered here. This
allows us to generate a comprehensive picture of the geographical profile of India and
how it is changing. We find some evidence that regions that have a predominantly
natural resource based economy are not growing as fast. We also find some evidence
that regions that contain important river systems have not performed as well. Other
issues are identified as well.
This study finds that much more work is required and is possible with available
data. It concludes by identifying a research agenda on the geographical profile of the
post-reform Indian economy.

Key Words: Indian Economy, Geography, BIMARU, State, Socio, Demographic, Credit, Bank,
Commercial, Motor, Spirit, Manufacturing, Service, NSDP, GSDP, Index Value, Indicus Analytics,
Laveesh Bhandari, Aarti Khare.

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1. Introduction
It has been over ten years since the first round of important reforms. While
countless studies have investigated the impact of the reforms in accelerated
economic growth, the impact of reforms on India’s economic-geography is yet to
be studied in detail.1 Such an assessment of reforms needs to be carried out at
various levels. While State level assessment of reforms has been done by many,
(Ahluwalia (2001), Sachs et al (2002), Shand and Bhide (2001), etc.), a sub-
State level analysis has been attempted by few. This paper is such an attempt.
We study the changes in the economic growth of regions or at the sub-State (or
region) level under reforms.2
A regional level analysis is essential for many reasons, we mention two.
First, since balanced economic growth is no longer a key post-reform policy
objective it would be interesting to study the differences among regions that are
surfacing in a more free economy. Second, fewer central government controls
and interventions have led to an increased importance of State-level and regional
level factors in determining the level of economic activity. Effectiveness of the
State and sub-State level factors can only be measured by regional analysis.
Many studies conducted in the nineties (and most using data from the
eighties and till the mid nineties) found that the northern States were at the
bottom of most socio-economic indicators. These States – Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh – have since been referred to as the
BIMARU (sickly) States of India. Their poor performance was generally ascribed
to poor governance, which was also reflected in poor socio-demographic
indicators (low literacy, high population growth, poor health indicators).
Ahluwalia (2001) and others using data essentially till the mid nineties also put
forth the view that post-reform the lowering of central government controls and
interventions also led to a fall in the preferential treatment of these States. And
greater economic activity in the nineties tended to favor locations with better
governance, human capital, etc.
Debroy and Bhandari (2000, 2002) using data till the late nineties and till
2001 found that the BIMARU syndrome appeared to be over. Their study
incorporated about a hundred different parameters ranging from economy to
social sector to consumer purchases and therefore was broader based. They
found that Rajasthan – a large component of the BIMARU States – was
performing much better than many other States. And even Madhya Pradesh was
no longer in the bottom league. Instead the eastern part of India – Orissa,
Assam and even West Bengal in some instances, were found to be performing
much worse. At the same time the northern States of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh,
and Haryana were performing as well if not better than their western and

1
Ahluwalia, I. J. and I.M.D. Little (1996); Joshi, V. and I.M.D. Little (1996)
2
We use regions as defined by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) as our basic units
of analysis. The NSSO divides the Indian States into 78 homogenous agro-economic regions that
are groups of contiguous districts. They have been demarcated on the basis of agro-climatic
homogeneity. Each agro-climatic region is contained within a State or UT. Together these 78
mutually exclusive and exhaustive regions of India cover all the 35 States and Union Territories of
the country.

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southern counterparts. In other words, their results indicate that the poor
performers (in a general sense) are not so much the northern States, but those
in the eastern part of India3.
The problem with their study (as with almost all such studies) is that they
were working with State level data. And there are widespread intra-State
disparities that the aggregates miss-out on. For instance, it is generally
considered that the western parts of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra (located
close to Delhi and Mumbai respectively) have much stronger economies and
greater economic well being than the eastern part of those States.
Circumstantial evidence also indicates that these regions' economies have
performed much better in the post reform India than their eastern parts.

This study is different from others in many ways.

ƒ First, it only deals with economic growth. Issues such as literacy, population
growth, and socio-economic welfare are not studied. Neither are governance
issues. Consequently, this study is more focused.
ƒ Second, we work with data at the sub-State level. This, as discussed before,
allows us to study the geographic impact of reforms at a much finer level.
ƒ Third, this study covers all of India. All the 78 regions in 35 States and Union
Territories (UTs) are covered, not merely the larger States. For instance, we
are also able to investigate the economic performance of northeastern States,
UTs such as Chandigarh and Delhi, and smaller States such as Goa and
Himachal. The picture that we present therefore is of the whole country.
ƒ Fourth, this study only aims at answering the question – What is happening to
India’s economic geography? Why such changes are taking place, or how,
are not dealt with here.
Of course what we leave out is extremely important. But that forms part of our
future work and is discussed later.

This paper proceeds as follows. The variables used and the methodology applied
are discussed in the second section. The indices that were obtained are
discussed in the third section. The fourth section presents the results. Based on
the results presented in the fourth section the directions for future research are
charted out in the fifth section. The last section concludes.

3
Their results also underscored the Kanpur – Chennai thesis that essentially states that if a vertical
line is drawn joining Kanpur and Chennai then the regions lying to the right of the line are stagnant
as compared to those on the left which are much more buoyant (Jairam Ramesh (1996).

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2. data and Method
We consider two points in time from the post reform period. 1991-92 and 1998-
99. The reforms started in mid 1991 and therefore we consider the time period
after 1991. We have restricted our time period to 1998-99, which was the latest
date for which good quality data is available when conducting the analysis.4
Five variables are used to gauge the performance of the economy. These
are motor spirit (petrol), HSD (diesel), commercial bank credit (credit) and
deposits, and production of cereals. By itself, each of them capture a small part
of the overall economy of a region, however, when taken together, they closely
reflect the level of economic activity. This is also tested (and reported) in the
next section.
Motor spirit is the most popular fuel used in transportation. It is used by
cars, two wheelers and other vehicles meant for personal transportation. We
consider quantity of motor spirit sold as representative of the general economic
well being and to a certain extent the affluence of the population.
Diesel is also used for transportation, but more so by vehicles used for
commercial transportation. Raw materials are brought in and the final goods are
taken away by these vehicles. Diesel also has other uses, such as for driving
water pumps, and generators. Diesel usage therefore reflects agriculture as well
as manufacturing activity. We use quantity of diesel sold as a measure of overall
commercial activity.
Deposits in all Scheduled Commercial Banks are representative of the
surplus available with the people. Savings of the people show up as deposits in
banks, among other financial instruments. Though commercial bank deposits do
not capture savings in its entirety, they are nevertheless an important and one of
the most significant components of it.
The bulk of Scheduled Commercial Bank Credit is for working capital for
large and small businesses. Increasingly this also includes some agriculture
establishments. Term loans components are also now a part of bank credit. The
level of credit in an economy is representative of the extent of investment in
existing and new ventures in various sectors of the economy. As in the case of
deposits, credit is available from many other sources, but bank credit is an
important component.
Finally, as a direct representative of the performance of the agrarian
sector we include cereal production. Cereal production may not be
representative of the level of agrarian production for commercial purposes but is
none the less an important variable. Subsistence of a large section of the Indian
population is directly dependent on the production of cereals. The other
variables used by us such as fuel sales as well as bank credit and deposit also
capture the production of agriculture cash crops.

Data sources

4
Admittedly a better method would be to study the changes over the whole period and not merely
base them on two endpoints. We leave that for the future. But we believe that the two end-points
also strongly reflect the changes. Later, while crosschecking with State GDP data, we find that our
results reflect the economic performance quite strongly.

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 Data for diesel and motor spirit is obtained from the Ministry of Petroleum and
Natural Gas, Government of India. The two time points for this data are 1991-
92 and 1998-99. The district level data on credit and deposits in scheduled
commercial banks was taken from Reserve Bank of India. The two time points
considered are 1991 and 1997. The source for data on cereal production was
Ministry of Agriculture for 1990-91 and 1998-99.

Comparison over time

There are many different ways of studying how particular variables have changed
over time. These range from percentage change to absolute change. We
however take a slightly different approach. Instead of attempting to answer,
which region has grown faster and which has grown slower, we study the
question:
Whether a region’s share of the overall Indian Economy has increased or
decreased?

This therefore involves the following steps.

1. First create a distribution of each of the five variables for the two years.
For instance, Region X may have a 0.5% of the total cereal production in
India in 1991-92 which has increased to 0.7% by 1998-99. We therefore
have 10 distributions (5 variables, two points in time), each distribution
adding up to 100%.

2. Second, create a single overall index. There are many different ways of
creating a single Index. The differences boil down to how the weights are
decided. We use an often-used method Principal Component Analysis,
which does not give us any flexibility in deciding upon the weights. PCA is
part of a factor analytic model that assigns weights to the variables on
purely objective basis and takes away the need to introduce subjective
weights.

Table 1
Variable Relative weights %
Motor Spirit 21.7
Diesel 21.0
Credit 20.3
Deposits 21.6
Cereals 15.4

Note that motor spirit obtains the highest weight closely followed by
commercial bank deposits. Next is Diesel and commercial bank credit.
The lowest weight is received by cereal production. These weights seem
realistic given the nature of reforms that have been introduced. Though
such reforms have had an impact on the agricultural sector, their impact
on the manufacturing and tertiary/ service sector is more direct and
obvious.

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 3. An index for both the time points is obtained using the five variables. For
each time point a region's index value reflects its share in the Indian
economy. For instance, if regions A and B have index value of x and y
respectively, and if x>y then region A's share in India’s economy is larger
than region B’s. In other words, the index indicates whether the share of
the region in the economy is more than or less than the share of another
region in the same period. We therefore have indices for 1991-92 and for
1998-99 and refer to them as Index of the Economy, 1991-92, and Index
of the Economy, 1998-99.

4. To gauge performance over time we consider the change in the region's

index values over the two time periods. This is done by subtracting values
of 1991-92 from those of 1998-99 for each region. The differences
represent the increase or decrease in each region's share in the economy.
We refer to this difference as our Index of Economic Change.

A positive value of the Index of Economic Change indicates an increase

and a negative value indicates a decrease in a region's share of India’s economy.
A higher positive value shows that the region has had an increase in share more
than other regions. For example, if coastal Maharashtra has a higher index value
than inland Maharashtra and if both have a positive value, it implies that over
the post reform period the coastal region's share in the economy has increased
more than that of the inland region. Thus, the position of a region is in terms of
the extent of increase or decrease in the contribution to the economy. A similar
exercise for the States is done to enable a State level analysis.

A region whose share has increased is one that is growing faster than the
aggregate growth rate of the Indian economy.

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3. Index of the Economy & Index of Change
Most studies on performance of States use figures on gross domestic product of
the States and its growth to do a comparative analysis of the States. There are
no GDP figures calculated at the sub-State level. Even for a State level analysis,
as pointed out by Ahluwalia (2000), Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) data
for individual States is not fully consistent with the national accounts estimates
of GDP. Methods of estimating GSDP differ across States.
Since we are not using the GSDP series, the criticisms do not directly
apply to us. Our data is collected across the country in a similar fashion and
therefore we are relatively sure of its efficacy in capturing economic activity in a
consistent manner.
However, as a cross check, we regress NSDP in 1992-93 at 1993-94 prices
and GSDP in 1998-99 at 1993-94 prices with the Index of the Economy for the
years 1991-92 and 1998-99 respectively. We find that for both 1991-92 and
1998-99 our index explains about 93 per cent of the variation in State domestic
products.

Tables 2 & 3: Cross-checking the Index of the Economy

Table 2 Table 3
Log of State NSDP in 1992-93 (1993-94 prices) Log of State GSDP in 1998-99 (1993-94 prices)
No. of observations 26 No. of observations 23
R-squared 0.930 R-squared 0.928
Adj R-squared 0.927 Adj R-squared 0.924
Variable Coef. t Variable Coef. t
Log of index 1.67 17.89 Log of index 1.54 16.41
Constant 8.94 98.56 Constant 9.40 102.11

We are however interested in a regional level analysis. Since, the State

level figures are obtained by aggregating the regional values and since our index
at the State level is highly correlated with the GSDP series the index has been
constructed to be just as representative of the economy at the regional level.

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4. Results

The map below shows how each region's share in the overall economy has been
increasing or decreasing in the nineties. In the map below, the two most densely
shaded regions are those whose share of the economy has increased. In the
next three less densely shaded regions, the share has decreased. The most
dense and the least densely shaded regions imply a higher increase or fall. (See
the Appendix for a list of the Index Values)

Figure 1: India – Index of Economic Change

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Broadly we find that:

ƒ The contribution of eastern part of India has been falling in the nineties. This
is in line with results obtained in other studies.

ƒ This is true both for the eastern States as well as the northeastern States.

ƒ Regions containing major metros such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore,

Hyderabad and Pune have shown high increases in their contribution to their
economy. This is in line with the direction of reforms that have been oriented
towards the formal sector, manufacturing, and formal services.

ƒ However, not all metros have shown an increase in their share. Regions
containing Kolkata, Chennai, and Ahmedabad may have grown, but their
share of the economy in the late nineties is lower than at the beginning of the
post-reform period.

ƒ Not all regions of southern India show increases in the share of the economy.
Parts of Andhra Pradesh (especially the coastal region) and the northeastern
part of Tamil Nadu have not done as well.

ƒ Most regions in the north have improved their shares. However Uttar Pradesh
is an important outlier.

ƒ Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu

show the most variability in our measure of growth performance. Whether
their shares are increasing or decreasing, change in regions within northern
and eastern States is more even.

ƒ Among the larger States, Rajasthan and Punjab followed by Karnataka,

Kerala, and Haryana have had the most even growth across different regions.

A discussion of the major States

1. Andhra Pradesh

This State is composed of four regions, covering 23 districts, making Andhra

Pradesh the fifth largest State geographically5. In the post reforms period,
regions other than the coastal region have also grown. That is coastal AP's
position relative to other regions has deteriorated. The most dynamic has
been the Inland Northern region. This region (also referred to as Telangana
contains Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh’s capital and also most dynamic city.

5
The geographical ranking of the States is done among 32 States - that is we do not include
Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal as separate States.

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 Inland Southern is next, followed by South Western region. (Also sometimes
referred to as Rayalseema) The latter three regions have improved their
position while coastal Andhra has not managed to do the same.

2. Assam

On the whole, Assam's relative position has deteriorated over the period
under study. In that the hilly region of Assam has deteriorated the least in its
relative position. Next are the eastern plains. The worst off have been the
western plains whose relative position has suffered the most.

3. Bihar

All the three regions of Bihar have suffered a setback in their relative
positions. The worst hit is Jharkhand, next is Bihar central. Northern Bihar
has not performed as badly as the other two regions but its relative position
has fallen all the same.

4. Gujarat

As a State the relative position of Gujarat has improved over the time span
under consideration. All regions of Gujarat have improved their positions
except for the inland northern region, whose relative position has
deteriorated. This northern region consists of Ahmedabad, Anand,
Gandhinagar, Kheda and Sabar Kantha districts. It is not clear why this may
be the case. It goes contrary to our priors. Further analysis should first
confirm whether this is just a statistical anomaly. The region showing the
most improvement in its position is Saurashtra. The Eastern region is next,
followed by the Dry areas and the southern plains.

5. Haryana

This State is divided into two regions. The eastern and the western region.
The eastern region that is closer to Delhi has improved in its position. This
region consists of the districts of Ambala, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Jhajjar,
Kaithal, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Panchkula, Panipat, Rohtak, Sonipat and
Yamunanagar. Moreover, this State that had excelled during the green
revolution has managed to improve its share in the economy even under the
economic reforms of 1991.

6. Karnataka

Four regions made up of 27 districts form the State of Karnataka. The inland
southern region has improved its relative position significantly. This is also
the region that contains Bangalore – India’s IT capital. There is a marginal
improvement in the position of the inland eastern and the Coastal and Ghata
regions. On the whole all the regions of Karnataka have improved.

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 7. Kerala

The two regions of this State divide Kerala onto the northern and southern
parts. Both these show an improvement in their relative positions. Among
them though the southern region has performed relatively better.

8. Madhya Pradesh

The centrally located State of MP has shown a downward movement in its

position relative to other States. Out of the seven regions of the old State of
MP, only three managed to improve their position over time. Malwa region
has improved the most, next is Northern MP followed by the Vindhya region.
The region whose share in the economy has reduced the most is
Chhattisgarh. Next is South MP, followed by central and southwestern MP.

9. Maharashtra

This is a large State composed of six regions. Geographically it ranks third

among 32 States. Not surprisingly, the region which has shown the most
improvement over the post reform period is the Coastal region, which
includes the city of Mumbai. The effects seem to have spread out. The
Inland western region adjacent to it is next in terms of improvement in its
relative position (this region contains Pune), closely followed by the Inland
central region (Vidarbha). The regions with a deteriorating share are the
Inland Eastern (Marathwada) and Inland Northern.

10. Orissa

Various studies have shown that Orissa has been lagging behind most other
States. Over the post reform period, this has been further reinforced. The
relative position of Orissa appears to be deteriorating. The region with the
least decline is the Southern region. Next is the Northern region. The region
which has faced the most decline in terms of share of the overall economy is
the Coastal region.

11. Punjab

This State had prospered under the green revolution and appears to have
gained a lot from the reforms introduced in the 1990's as well. The position
of the State has improved on the whole. Punjab is divided into the northern
(Doab) and the southern regions (Malwa). The northern region that contains
districts such as Jalandar, Amritsar and Ludhiana has shown better progress
than the southern region. Its relative position has improved more than that
of the southern region.

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 12. Rajasthan

There are four regions in this large State. Rajasthan -one of the BIMARU
States has shown some improvement in the post reform period. Its relative
position has improved as a whole and every region within it has also
increased its share of the economy. This is true especially of the regions that
are closest to the State of Gujarat, namely the southern (Mewar) and the
western regions (Marwar). The growth of Marwar has also been aided by the
impressive growth on the agricultural front in the northern part due to the
increasing impact of the Rajasthan canal.

13. Tamil Nadu

This southern most State of India comprises of four regions. Three of the four
regions are located on the coast. However only the coastal and the southern
regions have had an improvement in their relative position. The coastal
northern region has suffered a decline in its position (containing Chennai,
Tamil Nadu’s capital). Again it is not clear why this may be happening, and
goes contrary to our priors. The inland region's position however has been
improving.

14. Uttar Pradesh

Unlike Rajasthan this BIMARU State has only suffered further decline relative
to other States in the post reform period. Its five regions inclusive of
Uttaranchal have all moved lower in terms of their share of the economy.
Eastern UP has declined the most and southern and UP has declined the least.

15. West Bengal

The four regions in this State are the Central, Eastern and the Western plains
and the Himalayan region. While the positions of all these regions have
declined in the post reform period, the worst change has been for the Central
plains, which also includes Kolkata – West Bengal’s capital. The Western
plain's position has declined only marginally.

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5. Issues for further research
As mentioned in the introductory section, we believe that more research is
required before a more thorough picture emerges on the regions of India. In this
section we discuss, some directions that future research could and should take.
There are two important aspects of further work in this area, the first is related
to data and methodology, and the second relates to the kinds of questions
thrown up by this (admittedly preliminary) work.

5.1 Improving the Data and Methodology

ƒ Greater, better, and later data should be included. Many other district level
variables are available, and for later years. Since the start of this work,
district level data for 2000 for bank credit and debit is available, data on
telephone connections are also available. Agriculture data on not only cereal
production, but also of cash crops should be included.
Our index of the Economy could explain about 93% of the variation in State
level GDP. We believe that with the inclusion of other important series, this
explanatory power can be increased significantly.

ƒ The scope of this study should be expanded from being purely economic in
nature. To expand its scope it would be good to include issues such as
literacy rates, education profile, and health conditions. The bulk of such data
are at the State level. Fortunately, however, other data sources such as the
NSSO can also be accessed for consumer, employment, and demographic
data. (The NSSO's large sample data are collected so as to be representative
at the regional or sub-State level). The Census of India is also releasing data
at the sub-State level and can be another important source.

ƒ Infrastructure considerations are of significant policy interest, and as of now

we have not incorporated any infrastructure data in the study. That is a gap
that needs to be filled. State level infrastructure data however is of very
poor quality, and at the sub-State level, is more or less absent. As a
consequence, until the Census releases its district-level infrastructure data
for 2001, we do not see how this gap can be fulfilled.

Be that as it may, the need for infrastructure is an important consideration

for policy purposes. A detailed study on the impact of infrastructure on
State-level economic growth is first required. This could then be
supplemented by economic growth at the sub-State level to identify regions
where infrastructure is posing a constraint. We believe that there is
adequate information available to circumvent the data constraints with the
use of appropriate econometric techniques.

ƒ The methodology used here, is one among many that could have been used.
We do not claim that ours is the best. The methodology would of course
depend upon the particular questions being asked and the kind of data used.
However, we believe that the kind of econometric techniques that are
generally used to study inter-country divergence or convergence of growth
are not appropriate for studies at the sub-State level.

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5.2 How and why is the economy changing

In one sense, this is the most essential part of future work. That the eastern
parts of India have not performed as well as western parts, and that areas
around large cities appear to be growing faster are not the only aspects of our
results. Others are discussed below.

A. Moving away from a resource based economy: The map below shows the
geographical density of India’s economy in 1991-92. The more densely shaded
regions represent a higher share of the national economy. Broadly, the northern
and eastern parts of India are essentially resource based economies. The kind of
agriculture that was traditionally the norm there was based on high quality
land/soil, natural means of irrigation, natural resources and natural resource
based industry.

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 The other parts of the Indian economy were less resource based. For
instance the high agriculture production in Punjab is dependent on canals, tube
wells, fertilizer, HYV seeds, and so forth. Similarly, the large economy of
western Maharashtra is based more on engineering, chemicals, and textile
industry.
Now consider the map of the Index of Economic Change again. All the
important natural resource based regions show a fall. It includes all of UP and
Bihar, the new States of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, and this also includes
coastal Andhra and Tamil Nadu – the deltas of Rivers Krishna, Godavari and
Cauvery. Whether agriculture, mining, or natural resource based industry –
natural based economy of India has fallen in importance.

The implications of this possibility are manifold. In employment

opportunities, the type of infrastructure required, the kind of activities that the
respective State government’s are pushing for, all require a better understanding
of this structural shift.

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B. The relative fall of the great river system economies. Leaving Punjab,
there are six or seven major river systems in the country that account for the
bulk of India’s agriculture production. The Ganga in the north, the Brahmaputra
in the east, Krishna, Godavari and Cauvery systems in the south, and Narmada,
Tapti and Sabarmati in the west. The map below shows all the major rivers in
the country.

Apart from Punjab, all the important river systems show a fall in their
share of the economy. The first possibility is that somehow we are not capturing
the rural agriculture economy adequately. While that is possible, we believe,
that something more is occurring. All the reforms have somehow circumvented
agriculture. Though international trade, financial institutions, manufacturing
permissions and licenses, all have seen major changes. Agriculture conditions in
the nineties remained broadly similar to those before the 1991 reforms.

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 One reason why the regions surrounding the river systems may not be
performing well is that water management is not done properly. There are
technical as well as political problems in water management and sharing
agreements. Unresolved inter state water disputes pose a significant hurdle in
the path towards development in agrarian regions since none of the regions
involved are able to use the water efficiently.
Bad water management adds to the existing problem of fragmented land
holdings that are characteristic of the regions surrounding these river systems.
Punjab and Haryana that do not have this problem perform very well in
comparison to these regions. Uneconomic sizes of land holdings of the small and
marginal farmers constrain them in their ability to make complementary
investments. Investments in terms of agricultural inputs are required to reap the
benefits of having an abundant supply of water. Opening up of the Indian
economy and the resulting competition with cheaper agricultural imports requires
and increase in yield. This makes availability of better technology inputs in
terms of higher yielding seeds, fertilizers and pesticides indispensable for the
Indian farmer. Lack of working capital with these farmers to carry out the
investments may be a reason for the poor performance of these regions.
Other factors such as the political economy of these areas, the spread of
tube-wells in otherwise non-irrigated areas, terms of trade, all may have played
a role. In any event, to investigate this further would require a district level
analysis of agriculture, and agriculture production.

C. Governance and other issues. Many have asserted the importance of

governance, law and order, and higher education as being necessary for fast
economic growth. Data on political stability of the States, crime statistics,
location of educational institutions should therefore all be looked at.

In sum, many factors could be associated with this divergence between east and
west India. It is conceivable that all have played a causal role though in varying
degrees. Further research is called for on all these fronts.

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6. Conclusion
Our results clearly point out the regions and States that have gained and those
that have lost out in the post reform period. Measures to further improve the
position of the regions that have done well in the post reforms period can be
suggested and introduced only after a better understanding is gained of how and
why this has occurred. That is, this would require detailed study of the
processes that have ensured their better performance.
A large part of this paper is devoted to suggesting issues for further study.
We believe that many of our results can be improved upon by way of later data
and greater statistical robustness. Nevertheless we believe that the broad
direction of our results strongly reflect reality.
Our results also bring out the changes in regional disparity over the post
reforms period. Reforms that would benefit the regions that have lost out
entirely in the wake of the economic reforms of 1991 need to be introduced.
Agriculture reforms being an important area of national focus.
It may very well be that differences among India’s regions are increasing
purely because of the differences in the sectors where greater liberalization has
occurred. When certain sectors are ignored (cities, agriculture, governance) by
reformers, by default they are also ignoring certain geographical regions.

Indicus Analytics 19
 Appendix
India map with NSSO regions and their identifiers

Indicus Analytics 20
 Table A1: Regions, their identifiers and States

NSSO reg. ID Region name State name NSSO reg. ID Region name State name
21 Coastal Andhra Pradesh 144 Inland Central Maharashtra
22 Inland Northern Andhra Pradesh 145 Inland Eastern Maharashtra
23 South Western Andhra Pradesh 146 Eastern Maharashtra
24 Inland Southern Andhra Pradesh 151 Plains Manipur
31 Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh 152 Hills Manipur
41 Plains Eastern Assam 161 Meghalaya Meghalaya
42 Plains Western Assam 171 Mizoram Mizoram
43 Hills Assam 181 Nagaland Nagaland
51 Jharkhand Jharkhand 191 Coastal Orissa
52 Northern Bihar 192 Southern Orissa
53 Central Bihar 193 Northern Orissa
61 Goa Goa 201 Northern Punjab
71 Eastern Gujarat 202 Southern Punjab
72 Plains Northern Gujarat 211 Western Rajasthan
73 Plains Southern Gujarat 212 North Eastern Rajasthan
74 Dry areas Gujarat 213 Southern Rajasthan
75 Saurashtra Gujarat 214 South Eastern Rajasthan
81 Eastern Haryana 221 Sikkim Sikkim
82 Western Haryana 231 Coastal Northern Tamil Nadu
91 Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh 232 Coastal Tamil Nadu
101 Mountainous Jammu & Kashmir 233 Southern Tamil Nadu
102 Outer Hills Jammu & Kashmir 234 Inland Tamil Nadu
103 Jhelam Valley Jammu & Kashmir 241 Tripura Tripura
111 Coastal and Ghata Karnataka 251 Uttaranchal Uttaranchal
112 Inland Eastern Karnataka 252 Western Uttar Pradesh
113 Inland Southern Karnataka 253 Central Uttar Pradesh
114 Inland Northern Karnataka 254 Eastern Uttar Pradesh
121 Northern Kerala 255 Southern Uttar Pradesh
122 Southern Kerala 261 Himalayan West Bengal
131 Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh 262 Eastern Plains West Bengal
132 Vindhya Madhya Pradesh 263 Central Plains West Bengal
133 Central Madhya Pradesh 264 Western Plains West Bengal
134 Malwa Madhya Pradesh 271 Andaman & Nicobar A & N Islands
135 South Madhya Pradesh 281 Chandigarh Chandigarh
136 South Western Madhya Pradesh 291 Dadra & Nagar Haveli Dadra & Nagar
137 Northern Madhya Pradesh 301 Daman & Diu Daman & Diu
141 Coastal Maharashtra 311 Delhi Delhi
142 Inland Western Maharashtra 321 Lakshadweep Lakshadweep
143 Inland Northern Maharashtra 331 Pondicherry Pondicherry

Indicus Analytics 21
 Table A2: Region-wise index of economy and
index of change

Index of change
Index of the Index of the
Region ID Region State between 1992 and
Economy in 1992 Economy in 1999
1999
21 Coastal Andhra Pradesh 0.45 0.35 -0.09
22 Inland Northern Andhra Pradesh 0.40 0.51 0.11
23 South Western Andhra Pradesh -0.50 -0.49 0.00
24 Inland Southern Andhra Pradesh -0.52 -0.51 0.01
31 Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh -0.66 -0.67 -0.01
41 Plains Eastern Assam -0.50 -0.56 -0.06
42 Plains Western Assam -0.47 -0.55 -0.07
43 Hills Assam -0.63 -0.64 -0.01
51 Jharkhand Jharkhand 0.00 -0.15 -0.16
52 Northern Bihar -0.20 -0.23 -0.04
53 Central Bihar 0.02 -0.12 -0.15
61 Goa Goa -0.48 -0.47 0.01
71 Eastern Gujarat -0.04 0.03 0.07
72 Plains Northern Gujarat 0.14 0.12 -0.02
73 Plains Southern Gujarat -0.64 -0.61 0.03
74 Dry areas Gujarat -0.34 -0.29 0.05
75 Saurashtra Gujarat -0.21 -0.07 0.14
81 Eastern Haryana 0.08 0.20 0.12
82 Western Haryana -0.31 -0.28 0.03
91 Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh -0.47 -0.44 0.03
101 Mountainous Jammu & Kashmir -0.57 -0.59 -0.02
102 Outer Hills Jammu & Kashmir -0.67 -0.68 0.00
103 Jhelam Valley Jammu & Kashmir -0.56 -0.57 -0.01
111 Coastal and Ghata Karnataka -0.43 -0.41 0.02
112 Inland Eastern Karnataka -0.54 -0.52 0.02
113 Inland Southern Karnataka 0.24 0.35 0.11
114 Inland Northern Karnataka -0.15 -0.14 0.00
121 Northern Kerala -0.34 -0.29 0.05
122 Southern Kerala 0.28 0.41 0.13
131 Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh -0.09 -0.13 -0.04
132 Vindhya Madhya Pradesh -0.52 -0.50 0.02
133 Central Madhya Pradesh -0.42 -0.45 -0.03
134 Malwa Madhya Pradesh -0.25 -0.22 0.03
135 South Madhya Pradesh -0.46 -0.50 -0.04
136 South Western Madhya Pradesh -0.55 -0.56 -0.01
137 Northern Madhya Pradesh -0.53 -0.50 0.03
141 Coastal Maharashtra 2.83 3.05 0.22
142 Inland Western Maharashtra 0.32 0.36 0.04

Indicus Analytics 22
 Index of change
Index of the Index of the
Region ID Region State between 1992 and
Economy in 1992 Economy in 1999
1999

143 Inland Northern Maharashtra -0.35 -0.36 -0.01

144 Inland Central Maharashtra -0.42 -0.39 0.03
145 Inland Eastern Maharashtra -0.28 -0.31 -0.03
146 Eastern Maharashtra -0.59 -0.59 0.00
151 Plains Manipur -0.68 -0.69 -0.01
152 Hills Manipur -0.71 -0.71 0.00
161 Meghalaya Meghalaya -0.61 -0.62 0.00
171 Mizoram Mizoram -0.69 -0.68 0.00
181 Nagaland Nagaland -0.67 -0.67 -0.01
191 Coastal Orissa -0.33 -0.43 -0.10
192 Southern Orissa -0.64 -0.66 -0.02
193 Northern Orissa -0.45 -0.47 -0.02
201 Northern Punjab 0.62 0.66 0.04
202 Southern Punjab 0.21 0.23 0.03
211 Western Rajasthan -0.15 -0.12 0.03
212 North Eastern Rajasthan 0.03 0.05 0.02
213 Southern Rajasthan -0.56 -0.52 0.04
214 South Eastern Rajasthan -0.52 -0.49 0.03
221 Sikkim Sikkim -0.69 -0.69 0.00
231 Coastal Northern Tamil Nadu 0.38 0.37 -0.01
232 Coastal Tamil Nadu -0.35 -0.33 0.02
233 Southern Tamil Nadu 0.04 0.12 0.09
234 Inland Tamil Nadu 0.12 0.18 0.06
241 Tripura Tripura -0.66 -0.66 -0.01
251 Uttaranchal Uttaranchal -0.38 -0.41 -0.03
252 Western Uttar Pradesh 1.07 0.97 -0.09
253 Central Uttar Pradesh 0.16 0.12 -0.04
254 Eastern Uttar Pradesh 0.71 0.53 -0.18
255 Southern Uttar Pradesh -0.51 -0.53 -0.01
261 Himalayan West Bengal -0.54 -0.56 -0.02
262 Eastern Plains West Bengal -0.41 -0.42 -0.01
263 Central Plains West Bengal 1.37 0.89 -0.48
264 Western Plains West Bengal -0.44 -0.45 0.00
271 Andaman & Nicobar Islands Andaman & Nicobar Islands -0.68 -0.68 0.00
281 Chandigarh Chandigarh -0.52 -0.50 0.03
291 Dadra & Nagar Haveli Dadra & Nagar -0.70 -0.66 0.04
301 Daman & Diu Daman & Diu -0.70 -0.69 0.01
311 Delhi Delhi 1.82 1.95 0.13
321 Lakshadweep Lakshadweep -0.71 -0.71 0.00
331 Pondicherry Pondicherry -0.62 -0.61 0.01

Indicus Analytics 23
 State-wise relative growth index

The ratings of the States have been done in two groups. The 32 States and
Union Territories have been divided into 15 large States and 17 small States. A
regional level analysis has been done only for the 15 large States.

Table A3: Relative growth Index 1992 to 1999

Small States

Index of
Sr. No. Small States & UTs
change
1 Delhi 0.126
2 D & N Haveli 0.04
3 Himachal Pradesh 0.031
4 Chandigarh 0.027
5 Goa 0.011
6 Daman & Diu 0.01
7 Pondicherry 0.007
8 A & N Islands 0.001
9 Mizoram 0.001
10 Sikkim 0.001
11 Lakshadweep 0
12 Meghalaya -0.005
13 Arunachal Pradesh -0.005
14 Tripura -0.007
15 Nagaland -0.007
16 Manipur -0.011
17 Jammu & Kashmir -0.026

Table A3 presents the position of the small States in terms of the change
in their relative position over 1991-92 to 1998-99. Mizoram is the only north-
eastern State that appears in the top 9 small States and UTs, while Lakshadweep
is the only Union Territory that appears in the bottom 8 small States and UTs.
A clear east - west division is visible. Baring Jammu & Kashmir and
Lakshadweep all the other States among the bottom 8 small States and UTs are
situated in the Eastern flank of India. Among the top 9 States, except for
Mizoram and Andaman & Nicobar Islands all the others are in western India.

Indicus Analytics 24
 Table A4 presents the position of the large States in terms of the change
in their relative position over 1991-92 to 1998-99. A look at this table shows a
pattern similar to the small States and UTs. All the top 8 States are located in
the western block of India while the lower 7 States belong to the eastern block.

Table A4: Relative growth Index 1992

to 1999 Large States

Index of
Sr. No. Large States
change
1 Gujarat 0.262
2 Maharashtra 0.236
3 Kerala 0.176
4 Karnataka 0.154
5 Haryana 0.148
6 Tamil Nadu 0.146
7 Rajasthan 0.117
8 Punjab 0.072
9 Andhra Pradesh 0.028
10 Madhya Pradesh -0.044
11 Assam -0.14
12 Orissa -0.141
13 Bihar -0.343
14 Uttar Pradesh -0.352
15 West Bengal -0.514

That is to say, baring a few exceptions, in the post reforms period,

western India's performance has improved relative to eastern India.

Indicus Analytics 25
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