Regional Disparities in Infrastructural Development in Jammu and Kashmir: A District Level Analysis

The purpose of this paper was to explore the inter-districts, inter-region and intra-region disparities in the availability of infrastructural facilities in Jammu and Kashmir State. In order to measure the overall level of infrastructural development, district level composite index of infrastructural development (CIID) was constructed using multivariate techniques of factor analysis called Principal Component analysis and districts were classified into three categories-High, Medium and Low developed. The study observed an improvement in the availability of infrastructural facilities in all the districts of the state during 200708 and 2016–17, however, relative position of the districts remained unchanged. Interdistricts disparities measured by coefficient of variation revealed considerable variation in the availability of infrastructural facilities across the districts in the state as whole and the districts belong to two regions of the state, however, these disparities seem to decline during the study period.. The constructed composite index of infrastructural development indicates that Kashmir region was better developed in comparison with the Jammu region in overall infrastructural development. The study suggests the provision of infrastructural facilities in low developed districts of the state in general and newly created districts of Jammu region in particular in order to achieve balanced regional development of the state.