Online published on 9 December, 2015.
Balanced regional growth is necessary for the harmonious development of a federal State such as India. India, however, presents a picture of wide regional variations, in terms of such indicators of economic growth as per capita income, the proportion of population living below the poverty line, working population in agriculture, the percentage of urban population to total population, the percentage of workers in manufacturing industries, etc. Relatively speaking, some States are economically advanced while others are relatively backward. Even within each state, some regions are more developed while others are almost primitive. The co-existence of relatively developed and economically depressed States and even regions within each State is known as regional imbalance. Regional imbalances may be natural due to unequal natural endowments or man-made in the sense of neglect of some regions and preference of others for investment and development effort. Regional imbalances may be inter-state or intra-state; they may be total or sectoral. Economic backwardness of a region is indicated by symptoms like high pressure of population on land, excessive dependence on agriculture leading to high incidence of rural employment, absence of large-scale urbanization, low productivity in agriculture and cottage industries, etc.
