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It is commonplace,
when talking about economic growth trends in the 1990s, to focus dominantly
on all-India data. However, there are very important regional differences,
not only in the per capita incomes of the different states, but in their
patterns of growth over time, and especially in the recent period. These
are important to examine periodically, not only because the regional
variations themselves may change over time, but because it turns out
that there are very quite standard misconceptions about relative performance
across different states. These misconceptions are typically fed by the
mainstream media, which has assumptions about which states are “good”
and “poor” performers in growth terms, which are either outdated
or else not borne out by actual experience. And since these misconceptions
rarely get tested against the available data, they assume the status
of stylised facts among the ordinary public.
Thus, for
example, there is a general perception, which has been heavily stressed
by the very successful media management of its Chief Minister, that
Andhra Pradesh is one of the most economically dynamic states, not just
in south India but among all the Indian states. By contrast, Kerala
is frequently described as a state which has very good human development
indicators but poor growth performance. Similarly, the state of West
Bengal is frequently described as being characterised by “economic
stagnation” by mainstream commentators.
How far
all of these perceptions are from the reality is evident from Tables
1 and 2, which describe the annual rates of growth of GDP at constant
(1993-94) prices over the period 1993-94 to 1998-99 for 14 major states.
(Rajasthan has been excluded because data are only available until 1997-98.)
These charts are based on national income accounts data released by
the CSO.
Table 1 >>
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