Inter-state Disparities in Socio-economic Development in North East Region of India

The level of development of north east region has been estimated with the help of composite index based on optimum combination of socio-economic indicators. The state-wise data for the year 2006 on forty eight indicators were used for seven states (seven sisters) of the north east region of India. Fifteen indicators are directly concerned with agricultural development, nine indicators are directly concerned with livestock development, twelve indicators are concern with socio-economic development and the rest twelve indicators describe the level of development in infrastructural service sector. The level of development has been separately estimated for agricultural, livestock, infrastructure and overall socio-economic field. In case of socio-economic development, the Assam has been ranked first and Meghalaya is ranked last. Wide disparities were obtained in the level of development among different states. Positive Significant association is found between the Agriculture and Infrastructure fields. Literacy rate is also influencing the level of development in the positive direction. But the level of education, provision of health services, banking facilities, transport and communication system did not significantly influence the agricultural development. North eastern states require improvements of various dimensions in some of the indicators for enhancing the level of overall socio-economic development for unified balanced integration of curative, preventive and promotional health services.