Today there are 28 States and 7 Union Territories in India. But all these states are not similar in terms of level of development. We can classify states on the basis of per capita income between developed and underdeveloped states. Punjab was at the top with highest per capita income in 1990-91, whereas Orissa was at bottom with lowest per capita income. By the year 2002-03, Maharashtra had reached the top and Bihar had taken the bottom position with lowest per capita income. By the year 2005-06, Haryana occupied the top slot. Out of Union Territories Chandigarh was at the top, Goa occupies the second position, and on third position is with Delhi.
Agony of Bimaru States
Punjab, Maharashtra, Haryana, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh are undoubtedly developed states and Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh etc. are backward states. Economic analysts try to name these backward states as BIMARU by joining first letter of names of these backward states. They are called backward, as not only their per capita income in low, rate of economic growth in also very low there. We find that between 1990-91 and 2002-2003 Bihar state domestic product instead of rising, declined at the rate of about one percent per annum. We find that during this period rate of growth of gross domestic product (All India) was 5.4 percent per annum, rate of growth of State Domestic Product (SDP) was only 0.4 percent for Madhya Pradesh, 2.1 percent for Uttar Pradesh, 2.6 percent for Assam and 3.5 percent for Rajasthan.
At aggregate level, the rate of growth of backward states was only 1.7 percent per annum. Thus it was legitimate to call these states – BIMARU states. But situations have changed since 2002-03. Data indicate towards a much better position for these states. Rate of growth of Rajasthan's SDP has been about 12 percent per annum between 2002-03 and 2006-07. This rate has been 11 per cent for Orissa, 10 percent for Madhya Pradesh and 6.5 percent for Uttar Pradesh during the same period. Bihar has also started showing signs of improvement since 2005. Bihar has demonstrated a high rate of growth of 11 percent per annum. It may not be a pure coincidence that after new government took the reign of Bihar, that the rate of growth of Bihar economy not only turned positive it became one of the fastest growing state of the country and achieved a rate of growth of 11 percent per annum during 2006-07 and 2007-08. But this is also a fact that per capita income of Bihar is still the lowest in the country. On the other hand per capita income of Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and newly constituted state of Jharkhand is lower by 25 to 40 percent as compared to national average per capita income. This is cause of major concern. Reduction in regional inequalities is imperative not only from the point of view of improving living standards in backward states but also for faster economic development of the country at large. The importance of contribution of our vast man power specially youth in the development of the country is well established. If anyone or more states remain backward, it affects the development in education, health and other public utilities. In such states infrastructure development is also adversely affected. We find that in such states educational development index also goes down. According to the government's statistics Bihar is educationally most backward state and in the list of all state and union territories it is at lowest rank of 35.Ranks of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa are 34th, 31st, 29th and 28th respectively. Development of Rajasthan is getting revealed in its educational development and it has reached at 19th position. Though West Bengal is considered to be developed but it comes at 32nd position, even lower than Madhya Pradesh.
Once a state misses the train of development, it is caught into the web of backwardness. Whereas forward states get all kinds of investment proposals, backward states lag behind in investment. They get less support even from financial institution as compared to forward states. Living standards in these states are very low with no signs of improvement. Forward states enjoy maximum utilisation of national resources. According to Planning Commission per capita consumption of electricity in backward states is less than half as compared to forward states. These backwards states lag behind forward states even in terms expansion of roads, telecom, agriculture extension services, irrigation etc. They lag behind in terms of all types of indicators of human development. Life expectancy is low, literacy level is low and birth rate and death rate both are very high.
We get a sigh of relief when we note signs of development in these backward states and it seems that they are coming out of web of under development. Now it becomes the bounded duty of growth central and state government to completely eradicate the menace of illiteracy, lack of health facilities, poverty and unemployment and infrastructural bottlenecks, all arising due to under development and place these states on right track for the betterment of the common man.
Today according to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India stands at 132nd position in terms of human development. But if we make a comparison of human development index (HDI) of forward states, we find that they are comparable with HDI of nations with 60th to 100th ranks. But agony of the situation is that due to backwardness of some states, the nation is pushed to 132nd position in the world in terms of HDI. Thus even to push the nation up in International ranking, it is imperative to accelerate the economic, human and infrastructure development of backward states.