Dialogue October - December 2005 , Volume 7 No. 2
Development Disparity and North-East Region
I. Introduction
Regional
disparities in development are a ubiquitous phenomenon across both developed and
developing countries. Disparity, inter- regional and intra- regional, is partly
due to resource endowments and partly due to policy framework and execution.
There are pockets of highly developed centres in countries with poor resource
endowment as much as underdeveloped areas in countries with strong resource
endowments. The initial works on disparity upheld the view that differences in
income level across countries or within regions in a country led to development
disparity. But over the years, the spatial studies revealed that income by
itself was not a sufficient measure of disparity1-
rather it was often misleading. It was seen that mere income level did not
portray the real picture – a high per capita income and a high inflation rate
meant low real income and hence low disposable income at hand, on the other
hand, a low money income with no inflation meant a higher real income. Surfeit
of literature available on spatial disparity in India has taken many different
indicators. In 1968, the Working Group of the Planning Commission suggested six
indicators, again based on the 1961 Census data, Ashok Mitra attempted
classification of districts into four levels of development, yet the
socio-economic classification of districts was attempted by Biplab Dasgupta in
1971 where a correlation matrix of 24 variables was prepared in order to examine
the extent of variation among the different variables and factor analysis was
used. S.K. Rao attempted a similar analysis in 1973 by taking states as regions
and taking six variables into account. In the Indian context, studies on
regional disparity have used various indicators focusing on several
socio-economic dimensions.
In India, the northern and the
western regions of the country are fairly developed
Ahluwalia3,
while analysing the development disparity among the Indian states for the post
reforms period showed that states like Maharashtra and Gujarat which had a lower
growth rate compared to Punjab and Haryana in the pre reforms period in fact
achieved very high rates of growth in the post liberalisation period. This
change over according to him is due to the conducive environment derived from
the new policies in the two states of Maharashtra and Gujarat in the post
reforms period. It has also been shown by Ahluwalia that inter state disparity
among the states of the Indian Union have narrowed down in the post reforms
period. Investments on human resource development and availability of quality
infrastructure and policy environment and governance are important pre
requisites for development of a region as noted by Ahluwalia, it but needs to be
emphasised that without proper effective policies and good governance no amount
of development initiatives can augur the required thrust for growth of a region.
However, Ahluwalia’s study excludes the states of northeastern region of India
due to paucity of reliable and sufficient data.
II. The Northeast India: A Glimpse Per Se
Comprising the states of
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura the
northeast India accounts for 7.8 per cent of the total land space of the
country, of which again 70 per cent is hilly terrain. It shares considerably
large international boundary with China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar.
The
partition of the country in 1947 broke the natural and age old linkages with
rest of the country and this land locked region is connected to mainland India
through a narrow corridor in north Bengal, popularly known as the ‘Chicken’s
neck’ or the ‘Siliguri neck’, having an approximate width of 33 km. on the
eastern side and 21 km. on the western side.
The socio economic and political
settings of the northeastern region bear direct linkages and fit in the order
where the tribal form of society and economy occupy the vantage positions. The
demographic profile of the region is characterized by high birth rate, high
level of population growth induced by migration and the young age structure of
the population composition. The other less typical demographic characters are
low level of urbanization, the prevalence of agricultural occupations and the
plurality of languages and vernaculars. According to the 2001 census, the
population of the region is 3.85 crores of which 88 per cent is rural as against
the national average of 75 per cent. The decadal growth rate of population in
the region has also been significantly higher at 22.16 per cent compared to the
all-India average of 21.34 per cent during 1991-2001. This variation which was
around 20 per cent in the first half of the last century, increased sharply
above the national average in the next four decades (1951-1991) which coincides
with the post independence period. The population growth in the region was
highest during the decade 1951-61 when population increased by 41.31 per cent
against the overall rise of 21.51 per cent in the country. However, during the
last decade the population growth in the region has significantly come down
compared to 1981-91 when the estimated growth rate was 27.48 per cent. The
region is marked by uneven spatial distribution of population among the
constituent states, the primary reason being that plain areas in the states of
Assam and Tripura offer a congenial surrounding for absorption of large influx
of population than the hills and the difficult terrains which have offered
virtually isolated existence to tribal communities. Assam as the largest unit
accounts for some 75 per cent of the total population while Mizoram with less
than 2 per cent of the population stands at the extreme. In fact Assam, with
266.38 lakh and Tripura with 31.91 lakh people together, accounts for 83 per
cent of the region’s aggregate population. Consequently, Assam has the highest
population density of 340 persons per sq. km., which is higher than the national
average of 324 persons per sq. km, and next to Assam, Tripura is obviously the
other most densely populated state in the region. The hill states, on the other
hand, are sparsely populated e.g. Arunachal Pradesh, which is the largest in
terms of geographical area, has the lowest density of population (13 persons per
sq. km. as per the 2001 census). The region is marked by diversity in its
religious demographic composition as well. While the Hindus are the majority in
the three states of Assam, Tripura and Manipur, Christians are the dominant
majority in the hill states.
The urbanisation process in the
region has been very slow although significant growth has taken place in the
urban centres of the region in the course of last fifty years. The urban
population in the region which was 11.93 per cent in 1991 (the national average
being 23.31) has remained the same in 2001 while the corresponding figures for
the national level have gone up (25 per cent). The entire region has only 248
towns with an area that spreads over a little more than quarter million sq. km.
The region’s share in the country’s total geographical area is about 8 per
cent, in towns 4.75 per cent and in urban population 2 per cent. The mean
distance between towns in the northeast works out to be 49.23 km as compared to
33.51 km. in India. Further, a town in the northeast on an average serves an
area of nearly 2000 sq. km. as compared to 1000 sq. km. in the country which
clearly reflects the remoteness of urban services from the rural areas. Even
within the region there is wide variation among the states, a town in Tripura
serves on an average 456.1604 sq.km. area while in Arunachal Pradesh the
corresponding figure is 4926.059 sq.km. as per the 2001 census. The remoteness
of the rural areas from urban centres is more pronounced in the hill states due
to poor physical connectivity owing to hilly terrains.
III. Development Strategies and Spatial Disparity: Synergy or Synchronicity
The history of modern economic
development of the northeast region started with the discovery of oil, coal and
tea in Assam by the British East India Company. The discovery of the two mineral
resources and the tea plantation in Assam required adequate and good transport
connectivity both within and outside the region for their proper economic
utilisation. Consequently, the British Government invested in the development of
transport infrastructure in the region through expansion of the railways and the
road transport system in the entire oil, coal and tea belt of upper Assam.
Navigation was also developed through the Brahmaputra and the Barak river system
via Bangladesh. The British policy was therefore pursued in the line of what
Hirschman’s theory on development prescribes - investment in social overhead
capital (SOC) preceding the directly productive activities (DPA). The agro
climatic conditions of Assam contributed to the growth of the tea industry and
the concept of market economy brought about by the Britishers led to its
commercial cultivation. Even though the expansion of the tea and oil industries
were suited to sub serve the British colonial interest, it never the less
introduced Assam for the first time to commercial production and the world trade
market.
The British economic policy thus
encouraged development of localised economic spaces in the region in the context
of regulationist perspective. Regulation theory is sensitive to the space in the
way that the stress upon national specificity enables one to appreciate that
because of their histories, different region responds to the same processes in
different ways4. The question
further arises of how local spaces of regulation relate to national space and
how their relations are mediated through structural forms and modes of
regulation? Is there a mode of macro regulation, which accord different smaller
sites their place within some overall regulatory strategy, or does macro
regulation simply emerge from the interaction of lower level of parties5?
The development of the northeast economy during the British rule was charted
more in tune with the resources available and the commercial interest of the
British government. Therefore, within the broad policy framework of British
commercial interests, the local economic space of Assam found its due share.
Elsewhere in the region (especially, the hilly terrains with tribal societies)
where commercial interests of the British did not have an economical ratio of
investment-output, the local space in its social and economic forms continued
with their own nuances of barter transactions among different tribes and the
hills and valleys. Hence in the context of British economic history of the
region, it is Assam that found more attention and prominence due to its tea,
petroleum and the riverine navigation system for cargo movements.
At the time of India’s
independence in 1947, all the tribal areas of the northeast India excepting
Manipur and Tripura were within the state of Assam. Arunachal Pradesh then known
as NEFA (North East Frontier Agency), had a separate arrangement, it was kept as
an Agency and hence centrally administered. However, with the passage of time
demand for separate statehood from different tribal groups viz. the Nagas, the
Khasis and Jaintias and the Mizos led to the emergence, first of Nagaland as a
state in 1964 and subsequently of Meghalaya as a state and Mizoram and NEFA
(renamed as Arunachal Pradesh) as Union territories in 1972. The region
continued with this set up for a long time until 1987 when both Arunachal
Pradesh and Mizoram were declared as states of the Indian Union.
In the post independence period,
a number of institutional agencies have been working towards the region’s
economic and overall social development. Along with the rest of the country, the
region has been brought under the coverage of five-year plans for economic
development. Considering its strategic geographical location, the Northeastern
Council (NEC) was set up in 1972 to give a holistic approach to the entire
developmental process of the region. However, the paradox of NEC is that it has
been put under the Ministry of Home Affairs rather than the Ministry of Finance.
The socio-economic development in the region at present is guided by the
three-tier macro planning: Central plans, the plans of the States and the plans
of the Northeastern Council (NEC). Of late, in order to monitor the development
initiatives of different government and semi government agencies in the region
and in view of the growing insurgency problems often hampering the works of
large development projects, the Department of Development of Northeastern Region
(DoNER) had been set up in September 2001. It acts as the nodal Department of
the Central Government addressing the issues of socio economic development of
the seven states of the region. Another interesting feature of the northeast
India’s political and administrative set up is the Autonomous District
Councils (ADC) embodied in the Sixth Schedule. To fulfill the political
aspirations for autonomy and self rule demanded by the various tribal
communities of the region for preserving their democratic traditions and
cultural diversity, the Constitution of India conceived the instrument of tribal
self-rule under the ADCs.
If one analyses the development
discourse in the region since independence then to quote Jairam Ramesh, the
Hon’ble Member of Parliament, there are four discernible development paradigms
for the northeastern region6. In the decades of
fifties till mid sixties the culture paradigm dominated the scene. It was
believed that northeast India is a syncretism - a ‘diverse mosaic of
cultures’, which had to be preserved and the development discourse in the
region therefore emphasised on marinating the ethnic diversity of the region.
The second paradigm since the mid sixties following the Chinese invasion
brought to the fore the security paradigm. Together with the external
security threat, some of the growing secessionist forces from within the region
(the Nagas and the Mizos) forced a security oriented defensive approach in all
the developmental efforts put in the region. In the seventies this security
paradigm of development approach was complimented by growth of the political
paradigm when the demands for right to self-determination of the
secessionist forces were pacified by new state formations. The Central
leadership in consultation with the local dissident community leadership had
pacified the demands of these individualist ethnic groups by creating new
administrative arrangements - Assam had been bifurcated into three states for
enabling a fair socio-economic development of the various tribal and ethnic
groups. After this political arrangement of the various ethnic groups into new
states, the fourth paradigm viz. the economic development paradigm was
introduced when huge investments were pumped into the region since the eighties.
Yet, economic growth continues to be sluggish and the region is caught in a
flux. Therefore, it is evident that a particular regulation and economic order
guiding all sub national and spatial scale cannot deliver equitable growth.
Here, one has to examine whether it is possible to mediate nationally hegemonic
regulations at the sub-national scale, creating local modes of social
regulations. Different social regulatory mechanisms are still very active and
decide the economic and social spaces in the northeast7.
These were in existence even before the existence of government laws and
policies. There should be ways to induce these regulations to the national
scale. To quote, L.C. Jain8,
The North – East has its own
traditional local institutions, and the starting point for a poverty removing
growth endeavour must be to allow the ideas, innovations and resources of these
institutions to lead and direct development village by village - the centre only
supplementing their efforts rather than imposing a standard format from far
away. This is by no means a sufficient condition, but certainly a necessary
first step.
The pertinent question therefore
is can activities that have grown over the years based on inherent strength in
some localised space ensure their competitiveness at the national level? Again,
to what extent these efforts support the development initiatives? Control
exercised on the growth and development process may therefore be from the
society, institutions or from the law, i.e., the regulations imposed. The recent
work of M.S. Ahluwalia9 while looking into
the conventional variables like income, industrial production, infrastructure,
demographic factors in understanding the spatial disparity too makes a reference
to governance and policy implications.
IV. Contextual Plain of Spatial Disparity in Northeast India
As
pointed by Satish Jha10, the basic cause
for regional disparity is to be sought in India’s planning development
strategy itself. This strategy centred on rapid industrial development through
investment in heavy industries, which would uplift the living conditions of the
entire Indian population. But, the strategy failed as it was wrought with
mismatch of approaches. The development policies of the successive governments
were more in tune with the socio-political consideration rather than
socio-economic distributive justice and economic efficiency criteria. As Myrdal11
points out, on a low level of economic development with relatively low spread
effects, the competitive forces in the markets will tend to increase regional
inequalities which in turn will hamper economic development and at the same time
weaken the egalitarian polices of the governments. But a higher level of
development will bring about higher spread effects and this will bring about a
reduction in regional inequalities and herein lies the possibilities of
convergence in inter regional growth. Unfortunately, in the Indian case, there
has been no realisation of such convergence. This could be permanently
attributed to continuous low national economic growth performance. The
key for realising such convergence is the degree of infrastructure and human
capital development, which must come on a priority basis from the state
government, with reasonable support from the Central Government. If convergence
does not take place, regional disparity would tend to widen.
Unfortunately
for northeast India as per the latest UNDP estimates on the Human Development
Index (HDI) and the Infrastructure Index, all the states of the region are
ranked in the lowest category in respect of infrastructure index among the
states of the region while in respect of HDI, Mizoram ranks among the highest
category while rest of the states are all clubbed in the lower middle category.
Therefore, the malaise for the region’s disparity is to be sought in the poor
index for human development and infrastructure development. In fact, in the post
reforms period, where the development expenditure of all the state governments
in the region has decreased significantly, the non developmental expenditure has
increased sharply. All the seven states of northeast India are significantly
different from each other in respect of their social and economic spaces. While
the size of net state domestic product (NSDP) in Assam is highest among all the
northeastern States, the per capita income (PCI) is the lowest. This variation
in the NSDP and the PCI is due to the large size of the population wherein 69.20
per cent of the region’s total population is concentrated in Assam. It is
significant to mention here that at the start of the first five year plan in
1951, the per capita income of undivided Assam of Rs.290.70 was higher than the
all-India figure of Rs.246.00. Twenty years later in 1970-71, the per capita
income of Assam standing at Rs.538.60 fell significantly below the national
average of Rs.627.50. A grouping of the states excluding Assam on the basis of
their NSDP shows that rest of the six states of the region can be broadly
classified into two groups. The first group comprising Arunachal Pradesh and
Mizoram whose NSDP are approximately the same and the second group comprising
the four states of Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. This disparity in
respect of NSDP between Assam and the other six states is due to the size of the
economic bases of the states. The economic base of Assam is stronger and
expanded compared to the other states of the region. Among the remaining six
states, Tripura has the highest NSDP in the region. A recent study in respect of
inter state disparity among the seven states of the region with respect to
income and banking indicators12
reveals that in rank ordering the states in groups in terms of their per capita
income (PCI), the three states viz. Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland
constitute the high income group, while Meghalaya and Manipur fall in the middle
income group and Assam and Tripura comprise the low income group. Despite the
fact that both Assam and Tripura rank as the first and second largest states in
the region in respect of NSDP estimates, the high population density in these
states leaves a lower share of the pie for each person and hence the PCI is low
in both these states compared to the hill states13.
The spatial dimensions of disparity within the northeast states of India
indicates that while the plains and river valleys provide the ideal conditions
for human habitation with a diversified economic base and market access,
however, the large size of population settlement in the areas leads to an
overall pull down effect at the average income at the micro level vis-à-vis the
hill areas in the region.
One of the important agencies in
ensuring effective allocation of resources is the market. As pointed by Neog14,
the role of market forces in the Indian economy was given a wider space only
since the eighth plan. Market is said to be a good servant but a bad master. The
market excludes those who lack purchasing power and are backward. Suitable
social norms and legal framework are prerequisites for an efficient market,
which however are lacking in backward areas. The biggest impediment in economic
growth of northeast India is therefore market imperfection15. Both labour and land markets
which form the basic inputs of production are imperfect in northeast. The
primary reasons for imperfection in land market are: one, clan ownership of
common property resources (CPR) including land under the tribal customary laws
and absence of any cadastral survey in the hill states and second, even though
cadastral survey has been done in Assam and parts of Tripura, the tenancy laws
have created market distortions. In respect of labour market, the absence of
contractual labour in the hill economies have induced migrant labour force
comprising immigrants mostly from Bangladesh to capture the growing market for
labour derived from various construction and other activities under
infrastructure investment projects. This presence of migrant labour force has
led to income leakage and also distorted labour participation rate in the
region. The presence of market imperfection also shies away institutional
investment and entrepreneurial growth. Therefore growth and effective play of
market forces are essential for inducing the growth impetus in the region. They
act as countervailing forces for reducing regional disparity by introducing the
backward regions to a new realm of diversified opportunities in every field of
social, economic and political interaction.
V. Governance and Issues in Economic Growth in Northeast India
The political autonomy demanded
by the Nagas, Mizos and the Khasis since the early 1960s culminated in three new
state formations from three districts of Assam16.
Also, the sixth schedule has been in operation in the region to address the
issues of ethnic tribes. The formation of new states and districts were aimed to
devolve more political autonomy and right to determine economic development. The
northeast states, which are part of Special Category States, receive 90 per cent
of the plan allocations as Central grants and only 10 per cent of the
development finances are met by the states themselves. From time to time the
region also receives special economic packages from the Central Government - in
1996, it was H. D. Deve Gowda, the then prime Minister who announced an economic
package of Rs. 6,100 crore for specific projects in northeast states. Mr. I. K.
Gujaral who followed Gowda as the Prime Minister assured the implementation of
the package. In the year 2000, Mr. Atal Behari Bajpai, the next Prime Minister
of the country further announced a Rs.10, 271.66 crore package for the region.
But these packages have failed to generate tangible viable development
opportunities. Lack of local governance and people’s awareness on the level of
local governance has contributed to its failure in emerging as a strong vibrant
region in the country. Too much of reorganisation of states in the name of
democratic and federal structure based on western political theories has failed
to deliver the desired results for northeast where the sense of exclusiveness
in-group identities is stronger than political consciousness of a democratic
federal order with public accountability. These bifurcations and reorganisations
have created two dangers – one, with respect to financial discipline
and the second, with respect to demand for statehoods by various ethnic
and tribal groups in the region on an ideological framework of right based
approach to development. The Central financing in the region has tried to inject
a make believe trust into the people of northeast that the region receives top
priority from the Central Government (though these funds come with no requisite
supportive policy changes given the distinct socio-economic differences within
the region and its strategic location with international boundaries) which has
led to rent seeking channels at the local governance level which has created the
problem of opportunism. The existing situation today is ‘rich getting richer
and the poor getting poorer’- the absolute number of people below poverty line
has increased in the region by 1.26 lakhs during 1993-2001. There has been an
increase in marginal workers while there has been a gradual decline in the main
workers category as revealed by the NSS data17. This indicates that the
sustainable livelihood opportunities are becoming increasingly limited in the
region. The virtual shrinking of employment opportunities in the organised
sector has left huge reservoir of human resources unutilised or underutilised.
The alternative opportunities for self-employment are also severely restricted
with poor market linkages and connectivity especially in the hill economies.
The loss of opportunities has far
reaching social consequences apart from the economic losses. The ethnicity
problem in the region is one such direct outcome. The past precedence of
bifurcation has fuelled the imaginations of other ethnic groups to demand for
new states to ascertain their ‘right to development’. The protagonists of
such populist demands are yet to realise that growth and development of any
region cannot be realized by redrawing the boundaries based on political
considerations only. One need not study management or economics to understand
the fact that gains of development are reaped best by well-integrated states and
nations rather than by small entities with poor utilisation of resource bases.
The various groups in the region demanding for new states for asserting their
own right to development have to realise that the more the bifurcations further
is the curtailment on resource base whose potential gains of utilisation will be
uneconomical. The obvious casualty of this is none other than the very objective
of new state formation- growth and development of the so-called deprived group.
Therefore, it is not new state formations within the region that can be panacea
for the development of the region.
It is important to note that the
northeast as a physical or social space was far less integrated into the
mainstream Indian polity even during the freedom movement and the region had
very little presence at the national politics. The narrow physical connectivity
and socio-cultural differences perhaps has some bearing on it. These socio
cultural differences of the region have also underscored the economic
significance of the region to the nation. The region with its low infrastructure
base including poor transport connectivity has never been an attractor for
capital investment. Besides, the fragile security along the international
borders exposed during the Chinese aggression of 1962, also has some bearing on
the present trends of development in the region. The official border trade along
Manipur (Moreh) is very low but the unofficial trade between the region and its
immediate border countries has been increasing. Therefore though substantial
funds are generated through such trades and business but ‘un-official’
nature of the funds have led to investment leakages. The region is therefore
virtually dependent on Central funds. At a time when the rest of the country has
been a serious attraction for foreign institutional investors (FII), the
northeast remains isolated. A host of clearances are still required from the
Central Government to start a new venture by any FII in the region. Such
practices raise the transaction costs, which in fact stand much higher than the
expected rates of return, and under such situations economies of scale obviously
do not permit any institutional investment.
Government funds have never been
a constraint in ‘northeast’ rather it is problem of plenty where the local
leadership devoid of long term perspective is at a loss to deploy the funds for
effective income generating and development activities in the region. The region
has vast potential for development of tourism but this has long escaped the
attention of the local leadership. Sikkim which has been recently included in
the northeast region has generated the growth impetus through tourism industry.
A similar approach can be evolved for the seven states given the rich
bio-diversity of the region. The ‘northeast’ is a fragmented entity within
itself but it still has its collective strength if the internal differences can
be removed to emerge as a strong force in the mainstream development dynamics of
India. As ‘northeast’ its strengths and opportunities are its diversity in
social, cultural and economic sphere, which are the required capital for the
development of tourism industry. Its weaknesses and threats are poor local
governance with no visions for development of the region and factional ethnic
rivalry the corrective measures for which cannot be obtained from Central doles
but from a strong local leadership with social awareness and a reasonably
‘aware and informed population’ on the local governance and discourses of
development.
The
development paradigm of heavy financial investments has been supplemented by the
present wave of the ‘Look East Policy’ of India. If the northeast India is
to benefit from the regional cooperation, the scope for which is offered under
the ‘Look east Policy’, it must set its house in order- a strong political
governance with social accountability with a vision to canalise investments for
basic infrastructure and create a conducive economic climate to attract foreign
capital into three core sectors of the region - agro based industry, handloom
and handicraft and tourism which can in the process develop the service sector
as a backward linkage effect. It may be noted here that the Asian Development
Bank recently approved a $150 million loan to the Assam government for managing
its fiscal and revenue deficits. The loan will support the state government in
strengthening public finances, fiscal governance, and core governance through a
series of reforms at various levels - policies, legal, regulatory and
institutional. It is only hoped that the utilisation of resources begins with
good governance or else it will be rewriting old history with new jargons of
rent seeking governance.
References
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in Income and Level of
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2.
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Tickell, A. and J.A. Peck (1991), “Regulation Theory and Geographies of
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Ramesh, J. (2004), “Towards a New Asia: Transnationalism and
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Sarkar, J. and B Datta Ray (ed.) (1990), Social and Political
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Goswami, A. (eds.) (2001), Regional Disparities in India, Akansha
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ibid.
14.
Goswami, A. (eds.) (2001), Regional Disparities in India, Akansha
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Sarma, A. (2005), “Why Northeastern States Continue to Decelerate”,
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June 10.
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Goswami, A. (eds.) (2001), Regional Disparities in India, Akansha
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17.
National Sample Survey, 50th
and 55th Rounds.
TABLE 1
Total and rural population of Northeastern States (In ‘000
Persons)
States
1991 2001
Total Rural
Total
Rural
(1)
(2) (3)
(4)
(5
Arunachal
Pradesh
859 754
1091
868
Assam
22295 19824
26638
23429
Manipur
1826
1321
2389
1818
Meghalaya
1760 1432
2306
1853
Mizoram
686
369
891
450
Nagaland
1212 1005
1989
1635
Tripura
2744 2326
3191
2648
Source: Census of India, 1991 & 2001
Table 2
Proportion of Rural Landless Households and Households without
Cultivable Land in the N.E. States (In Percentage)
States
Households
Households without
without Land
Cultivable Land
1993-94 1999-2000 1993-94 1999-2000
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Arunachal
Pradesh
15.38
19.81
22.81
25.38
Assam
11.77
14.37
34.55
35.38
Manipur
0.56
1.53
24.74
16.18
Meghalaya
8.90
6.89
17.89
12.42
Mizoram
1.29
2.39
10.25
14.43
Nagaland
3.66
1.51
6.35 10.54
Tripura
7.23
3.50
54.01
57.8
Source: NSS 50th and 55th
Rounds
Table 3
Road Density in the Northeast States (2004)
States Road Density
(per 100 sq. km.)
(1) (2)
Arunachal Pradesh 21.96
Assam 114.15
Manipur 51.27
Meghalaya 42.69
Mizoram 24.09
Nagaland 126.89
Tripura 155.37
Source: CMIE, Infrastructure, 2004
Table 4
Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) and
Per Capita Income (PCI) of Northeastern States
State
Net State Domestic Product
Per Capita Income
(NSDP) (Rupees in
Crore)
(PCI)
(In Rupees)
At Current Prices At Current Prices
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 2004
Arunachal
1286
1533 1740 (2001-02) 12335 14338 18821
Pradesh
Assam
22710 25333
31721 (2002-03) 8826 9720 13343
Manipur
2311 2554
3047 (2002-03) 10520 11370 14968
Meghalaya
2467 2806
3842 (2002-03) 10607 11678 18061
Mizoram
1139 1359
1645 (2001-02) 13712 12535 22720
Nagaland
2184
-
3427 (2000-01) 12408
- 22223
Tripura
3473 3813
5660 (2001-02) 9613 10213 21796
Source: NEDFI Data
Bank, Quarterly, Vol.1.Issue I, July, 2002 & Handbook of Statistics on the
Indian
Economy, RBI, 2003-04
Note: For column 4, figures in brackets indicate respective years
Table 5
Average Distance Served by a Town in Northeast States
as per 2001 Census (in sq.km)
States Average Distance
(in sq.km)
(1) (2)
Arunachal Pradesh 4926.06
Assam 627.50
Manipur 676.58
Meghalaya 1401.81
Mizoram 948.5
Nagaland 1842.11
Tripura
456.16
Source: Census 2001
Table 6
Index of Fiscal Self Reliance in Northeast States
States
Own Revenue/
Relative to
Improvement
Revenue Expenditure
All
States (ratio)
Index (ratio)
(per cent)
Average Average
Average
Average
1993-94 2000-2001 1993-1994
2000-2001
to
95-96
02-03
95-96 to 02-03
Pradesh
Assam
30.24 32.66 0.53
0.65 1.23
Manipur
9.45
7.49 0.17 0.15 0.90
Meghalaya
19.74 19.35 0.35 0.39 1.11
Mizoram
6.55
5.60 0.11 0.11 0.97
Nagaland
9.44
6.85 0.17 0.14 0.82
Tripura
10.22 13.76 0.18 0.27 1.53
Table 7
Northeast States Grouped according to Selected Indicators
Human Development Index Infrastructure Index
High
High
Mizoram
High Middle High Middle
Manipur, Nagaland
Middle
Middle
Arunachal
Pradesh,
Meghalaya and
Tripura
Lower Middle Lower Middle
Assam
Low
Low
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam,
Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram,
Nagaland
and Tripura
Source: UNDP for HDI and IDFC for Index of Infrastructure
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