Distribution of fixed capital in the manufacturing sector: An analysis of its variability across Major Indian States

Since, investment in the fixed capital is indispensable for sustaining the growth and development of the industrial sector, therefore the present study attempts to analyse the distribution of the amount of fixed capital in the manufacturing sector and assess its variability across the major Indian states. The time period under study covers forty years (1974–75 to 2013–14), which have been divided into four decades (1974–75 to 1983–84; 1984–85 to 1993–94; 1994–95 to 2003–04 and 2004–05 to 2013–14) to facilitate inter-temporal comparisons. The study has further ranked the regions on the basis of amount and variability of fixed capital for the said time period across seventeen major Indian states, which have been categorized into four geographical regions (northern, eastern, central & western and southern). The results indicate that when the regions were ranked on the basis of the amount of fixed capital, it was observed that the northern region registered the lowestern rank throughout each decade, whereas the central and western region dominated each decade by securing the top rank on an average. However, when the ranking was done on the basis of coefficient of variation (CV), the northern region registered the lowestern rank throughout all decades thereby reflecting least variability in the distribution of fixed capital.