Introduction

Since Independence, the Indian government has been concerned about how to (1) achieve high economic growth with distributive justice, (2) reduce unemployment and poverty and (3) achieve balanced regional development. The issues of regional economic growth, inequality and poverty, in particular, have attracted considerable attention among researchers, planners and policymakers. The issues have been given sharp focus in all the plans, and various policies and programmes have been adopted for achieving the objectives. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007–2012), with ‘faster and more inclusive growth’ as its central objective, recognised the need to make growth ‘more inclusive’ in terms of the benefits of growth flowing to those sections of population, which have been bypassed by the high rates of economic growth achieved in recent years. It has also been perceived that the disparities among regions have been increasing steadily and the benefits of the rapid growth have not reached all parts of the country in an equitable manner. Recognising the need to make growth ‘more inclusive’, the Approach Paper to the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012–2017) has chosen ‘faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth’ as its central theme. For growth to be ‘more inclusive’, it is necessary that the benefits of economic growth be shared equally by all sections of population and by all regions of the country. At the backdrop of impressive progress of the economy during the last two decades, it would be useful to investigate how far economic growth has been ‘inclusive’ and to what extent different sections of population and different regions of the country have shared the benefits of growth.