Regional Inequalities – A Moving Frontier

Posted by Vijay Shankar | Jul 8, 2018 | Working Papers | 0 |

Among the various axes of inequality in India, regional disparities have acquired greater salience in recent times, with demands being made for special status for certain states on this basis. What has been completely overlooked in the process is that regional backwardness in India is a moving frontier with the most intense forms of poverty and deprivation getting increasingly concentrated within enclaves of backwardness, especially those inhabited by adivasi communities. This paper reports on a recent exercise within the Planning Commission that tries to capture this dynamic of regional backwardness in India.

About The Author

Vijay Shankar

P.S. Vijayshankar is a founder member of Samaj Pragati Sahayog (SPS), an NGO based in Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh. He received his M. Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His areas of interest are water resource management, sustainable agriculture and strengthening of community-based and self-reliant people's institutions. Vijayshankar has co-authored the book, India's Drylands: Tribal Societies and Development through Environmental Regeneration (OUP, 1998); and co-edited Water: Growing Understanding, Emerging Perspectives (Orient Blackswan, 2016). He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, in February-March 2011.