India’s economic growth is the growth that its states achieve both independently and collectively. Several factors contribute to each state’s growth, including mainly local-level initiatives and central support in terms of infra development. The new working paper prepared by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister has, overall, stated the obvious – that the western and southern states performed better while the northern and eastern sectors suffered overall. This has been the case for the past few decades, principally after the Economic Liberalization of the early 1990s. The report notes that Sikkim, among the north-eastern states performed better than the other sister states. Among the poor performers is Meghalaya.
Significantly, among the weak performers are Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the heartland of the Hindi belt, where population explosion on the one hand and poor law and order on the other make a mess of life. The unbridled growth of the Muslim population in these two states and a matching failure on the part of the establishment to make use of the manpower of the large army of youths in productive sectors worsened the scenario. Fact is also that most governments are under-performing. Uttar Pradesh could not majorly grow even as the BJP government is having repeated innings there by way of a so-called “double-engine sarkar.” Neither could Bihar show any substantial growth despite the long rule of Nitish Kumar. So is West Bengal, which majorly let down the eastern sector by recording a fall in its growth graph. Odisha stood out and made commendable strides in the recent years.
It is a travesty of fate that the eastern metropolis began its fall ever since the 1960s, while the western metropolis grew by leaps and mounts. Mumbai principally fed the entire Maharashtra and raised the state’s status while Kolkata let down the state and the East. The reasons are obvious – trade union militancy driving away industries and undercutting industrial activities there for several decades. Mamata Banerjee sought to change the ‘red’ image of the state, but she revelled in her government’s fight against the Centre, upsetting the economic applecart. The growth of Gujarat was encouraged initially by a spill-over from Mumbai, followed by favourable industrial climate and of late major support from the central government. Delhi and contiguous Haryana state formed into another growth centre. The major growth of the national capital since the 1980s acted positively on Haryana more and less on Uttar Pradesh. The high growth of both Telangana and Karnataka is thanks mainly to their buoyant IT sector while Tamil Nadu showed all-round progress both in industrial growth and agricultural development. A big state like Madhya Pradesh does not figure majorly in the growth graph despite several years of BJP rule there and due to lack of industrialisation.
