Inter-State Disparities in the Reduction of Multidimensional Deprivations in India

The higher economic growth in the post-reform period has increased the standard of living of the people. At the same time, it widened the inter-state inequality. It was argued that the increasing inequality might lead to social disarticulation and hinder growth. Thus, a discussion on growing inter-state inequality became a policy debate in recent years to achieve inclusive growth. In this backdrop, this article analyses trends in the inter-state inequality with regards to multidimensional deprivations (MD) in the domains of education, health and poverty during the post-reform period in India. It also assesses whether levels of deprivation among the Indian states are converging/diverging over a period of time. Weighted coefficient of variation and Theil entropy measures were used to assess the inter-state inequality and β-convergence estimates were used to test whether there is convergence/divergence among the Indian states with regards to reduction in MD over time. The analysis found that the inter-state disparity in MD has increased during the post-reform period in India; the levels of deprivation among the better off states declined over time, while most of the backward states could not do so due to their high initial level deprivations.