Economic Performance of the States in the 1990s

 
May 15th  2001

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media, which has assumptions about which states are “good” and “poor” performers in growth terms, which are either outdated or else not borne out by actual experience.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 >>

 
 | 1 | | 3 | 4 | Next Page >>
 

Site optimised for 800 x 600 and above for Internet Explorer 5 and above
© MACROSCAN 2001