Sectoral Performance and Regional Disparity: A Study of the Indian States with Special Reference to Agriculture

Increasing inter-state disparity across regions is one of the major challenges in Indian agriculture. India being an agro-based economy more than forty per cent of the total population is still engaged in the agriculture sector. The present study tries to examine the growth performance of the agriculture sector in comparison to PCNSDP, industry, and service sectors. Also, examine the sector-wise regional divergence of the 26 Indian states during 1980-81 to 2019-20. The trend line shows a huge inter-state disparity in the sector-wise performance as well as in the growth rate of PCNSDP in the economy. The result of the Gini coefficient shows that the disparity level has increased in the agriculture sector and PCNSDP while it is stagnant in the industry and service sector. Moreover, K-means cluster analysis results show less evidence of convergence tendency among the states over time. Thus, the Central and state governments should implement such schemes for the development of all sectors towards their increase in the share of output and employment in the country’s GDP.

Banalata Saikia*1, Chandra Saha Roy2 and Salim Shah3 Click here to download file

Research Article | Published online : 09-Jun-2022