Inter-district disparities in the socio-economic development of Himachal Pradesh

The economy of Himachal Pradesh is dependent upon the Agriculture & Horticulture and any fluctuation in the production impacts the economy at large. Districts of Himachal Pradesh have been ranked on the basis of their levels of development obtained with the help of optimum combination of 35 indicators related to agriculture, social and industrial sectors. The district wise data in respect of the indicators published by Himachal Pradesh government for the year 2014–15 were used for all 12 districts in Himachal Pradesh for the present study. Techniques adopted by Narain et al. (1991, 1995) have been used in addition to principle component analysis and factor analysis for ranking the districts. The districts Kangra, Mandi, Sirmaur and Shimla were found to be most developed whereas the districts Lahaul and Spiti, Kinnaur, Bilaspur and Hamirpur were found to be low developed districts in the overall development.