Spatio-Temporal Disparities In Agricultural Development - A Study On Major States And All India

The issue of widening regional disparities is a growing concern for balanced development across the states as a development strategy. But, the balanced agricultural development is retarded due to wide regional disparity. In view of this, the study has attempted to measure the spatio-temporal disparities by constructing the composite agricultural development index (CADI) of the 17 major states and all India by assigning different weights to the indicators of agricultural development. This study also attempts to classify states according to their status of agricultural development. Wide disparities in the level of agricultural development had been observed across the states. But the coefficient of variation showed the declining trend indicating a convergent trend in the inter-state levels of agricultural development and narrowing down the disparities level across the states. Most of the states progressed between the early period of Green Revolution (1971-72) and the period of post Green Revolution (1985-86). It was observed that the states had changed their relative rank and absolute indices but holding the same category all the period except Assam, Jammu and Kashmir and Maharastra. The large imbalances exist in the agricultural development indicators across the states, which is the barrier for accentuating balanced development. Thus, for minimizing the inter-state disparities and to promote the balanced agricultural development, the resources should be distributed on the basis of equity, efficiency, productivity and sustainability.