Development disparities among the districts of Assam

Abstract

Development is a multidimensional process and its impact cannot be described fully by a single indicator. Moreover, a number of indicators when analyzed individually do not provide an integrated and easily comprehensible picture of reality. Hence there is need for building up of a composite index of development based on key indicators. Furthermore disparities create bottlenecks to the development. The lesser the disparity, the greater the chances of development; and the greater the disparity, the lesser will be the chances that development takes place. Balanced regional development has been given a high priority in the planning process. The work reported in this thesis is on the quantitative analysis of development as a whole, covering key indicators of development as far as possible, to estimate its composite index and development distances of different districts from each other. The regional imbalances are computed and classified for chosen 23 districts in to different stages of development such as high level, medium level, developing and low level. To identify the model districts, those districts belonging to a group of comparatively homogeneous developmental stage within close proximity to each other, for the low developed districts and estimate Potential Target of various developmental indicators of low developed districts for improving the level of development. Here the development indicators are divided in to seven sectors viz. Industry, Health, Status of Women, Basic Infrastructure Services, Agriculture, Education and Socio-Economic sector. Each sector is divided in to various sub sectors and ranking of the districts are done for each sub sector. From the study it is observed that for different sectors, different districts show better prospect. On the basis of all the sectors Kamrup is found to be in first ranking and Dhemaji is in the last ranking.