Policy makers, political leaders, development analysts and other concerned citizens are increasingly focusing attention on the disparities in levels of development between different sections of the population in India.

Such disparities have important political, social, economic and law and order implications.

Many violent, anti-constitutional movements can be traced to stark economic disparities. The different successful and continuing agitations for smaller states have both a political and cultural as well as an economic dimension.

The disparities are also a matter of concern as they threaten the nation's hopes of achieving various internationally accepted Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

The first of the striking disparities is the rural-urban divide. Around 75% of the total number of poor people in the country live in rural areas.

This rift is accentuated by a socio-political divide. The proportion of poor people among scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes is much higher than the proportion in the general population.

There is also a very marked class divide in the country:

• India's poorest 10% shared just 3.5% of the nation's total income or consumption in 1997.
• The poorest 20% shared 8.1%.
• The richest 20%, on the other hand, took 46.1%.
• The richest 10% grabbed 33.5% of the nation's total income or consumption in 1997.

BIMARU categorisation
Then, there are gross regional disparities. Generally this phenomenon has been described by the use of the term 'BIMARU': The states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are considered the least developed in the country on many criteria.

However, with the carving out of the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the term 'BIMARU' has lost its meaning. Also, Rajasthan arguably no longer belongs to the 'least developed' category: According to the Planning Commission's National Human Development Report: 2001, the percentage of poor people in the state (15.28) was well below the national average.

The BIMARU categorisation also loses meaning if we look at the state-wise incidence of poverty. From this perspective, India's five 'poorest' states, according to the Planning Commission's 1999-2000 figures, were:

• Orissa (47.15% of the population was below the poverty line in 1999-2000)
• Bihar (42. 60%)
• Madhya Pradesh (37.43%)
• Sikkim (36.55%), and
• Assam (36.09%).

See 1999-2000 poverty ratios of all states.

East-west divide
Another commonly used method for identifying India's least developed regions is to draw an east-west line down the length of the country: The poorest regions are said to be in the eastern part of the country.

There is considerable evidence to support the east-west divide theory. For instance, if we look at 1997-98 figures of per capita net state domestic product, we see that the highest figures are from:

• Delhi (Rs 6,478)
• Goa (Rs 5,640)
• Maharashtra (Rs 5,032), and
• Punjab (Rs 4,389) -- all falling in the western half of the divide.

The lowest figures are all from states in the eastern half:

• Bihar (Rs 1,126)
• Assam (Rs 1,675)
• Orissa (Rs 1,666)
• Uttar Pradesh (Rs 1,725), and
• Meghalaya (Rs 1,804).

However, it doesn't make sense to look at states as a whole. For example, while Maharashtra is often considered one of the most developed states in India, it accounts for a very large number of total poor in the country -- over 22 million in 1999-2000, much more than the total poor in Orissa (around 17 million).

Clearly, we have to look at the intra-state incidence of poverty to get a better idea of the geographical spread of deprivation.

Intra-state disparities

A detailed study of regional disparities in development and poverty was recently conducted by the National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad. Its report, India Rural Development Report, 1999, throws up several revealing facts:

• In undivided Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh accounted for over 30% of poor in the state, while the northern part of the state accounted for only 4.4%.
• Over 43% of the poor in Orissa live in the coastal region of the state. Likewise, in Andhra Pradesh over 47% of poor live in the coastal region.
• Over 47% of the poor in undivided Uttar Pradesh live in the eastern part of the state.
• Over 49% of the poor in Maharashtra live in central and eastern parts of the state.
• In Karnataka, over 60% of the poor live in the northern inland part of the state.

The report states: "…To a significant extent there are heterogeneities in each state except perhaps Bihar which are uniformly poor. Sharp contrasts are witnessed in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, though variations can be seen in smaller states like Haryana and Rajasthan as well."

The report attempts to identify low poverty, medium poverty, high poverty and very high poverty regions across the country, on the basis of 1993-94 rural poverty ratios. Accordingly, the 'very high poverty' regions of the country with a rural poverty ratio of above 60 are:

• Southern (undivided) Bihar
• South-western (undivided) Madhya Pradesh
• Southern Orissa
• Southern Uttar Pradesh

The 'high poverty' regions with a rural poverty ratio between 41 and 60 are:

• Northern and central (undivided) Bihar
• Central and eastern (undivided) Uttar Pradesh
• Himalayan and eastern West Bengal
• Coastal and northern Orissa
• Southern Rajasthan
• Hilly and western plain regions of Assam and all parts of the other north-eastern states
• Central, northern (inland) and eastern parts of Maharashtra
• Central, southern and Chhattisgarh region of (undivided) Madhya Pradesh
• Northern coastal region of Tamil Nadu
• Sikkim
• Dadra & Nagar Haveli

High poverty regions can be better identified by looking at smaller areas like districts (see India's poorest districts).

Causes of backwardness

Are there any common causative factors that apply to all backward regions of the country?

The India Rural Development Report quoted earlier notes: "Almost all these (backward BIMARU and eastern) regions (except perhaps much of western Rajasthan and parts of western Madhya Pradesh and southern Uttar Pradesh) have the agro-climatic potential to yield high returns on agriculture because of reasonable-to-high rainfall and availability of perennial river waters."

That is to say, the main cause of poverty in these regions is human failure rather than natural causes.

The report also notes:

• 'Very high poverty' regions across the country in different states have a predominantly tribal population. These regions are rocky and dry yet densely populated because of their agro-climatic conditions.
  
  
• Likewise, 'high poverty' regions of different states have a large tribal population, are thickly populated, semi-arid and have been "historically neglected".

A comprehensive estimation of district-level deprivation made recently by Bibek Debroy of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi, and Laveesh Bhandari of Indicus Analytics in District-level Deprivation in the New Millennium (Konark Publishers, New Delhi; 2003), came up with other significant findings:

• Most highways and rail networks tend to be in areas outside the most backward districts.
• All the most backward districts lie in low-growth regions.
• The most backward districts have the lowest presence of trained personnel during deliveries.
• Districts in eastern India tend to have lower pupil-teacher ratios compared to districts in western India.

Significantly, the report also found that:

• Backwardness does not seem to be linked to vulnerability to frequent drought. In the authors' list of 69 districts, only western Madhya Pradesh and Gulbarga are drought-prone.
  
  
• Many of the most backward districts have better access to safe drinking water than other more developed parts of India, including Kerala.

One often touted cause for backwardness is bad governance. All the various lists of most backward districts include notoriously ill-governed regions.

However, one cannot pinpoint poor governance or lack of political will as the overriding cause of extreme backwardness. As the authors of District-level Deprivation in the New Millennium noted, Vidharbha and Marathwada in Maharashtra are amongst the most backward regions of India, but they had political clout: Maharashtra's longest-serving chief minister was from Vidharbha. The state had another chief minister from the region and two from Marathwada.

Increasing divide

The economic divide between states will increase. An obvious reason is the state's existing level of economic infrastructure and climate, which attracts or discourages new investment. According to ProjectsToday, as of March 31, 2002, the four states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh had an outstanding projects investment of Rs 187,554 crore, accounting for around 11% of the total investment planned in the country. On the other hand, Maharashtra alone managed to attract more investment (Rs 192,000 crore) than all these four states put together!

Another reason for the increasing economic divide between states is fertility rates.

By 1995, fertility rates (average live births per woman) in Kerala and Tamil Nadu had dropped below 2.1. Other southern states and Maharashtra had fertility levels below 3. However, the BIMARU states and Haryana had rates above 4.

When we compare these figures with per capita income, we see that the four BIMARU states have low per capita incomes averaging below Rs 10,000 per year. In comparison, the top five low-fertility states average over Rs 18,000 per year. The BIMARU economies have grown at only 4.6% over the last decade, compared to the 6.3% clocked by low-fertility states. The disparity in terms of per capita income growth will become larger since population in BIMARU states is growing faster.