Indian economy has been experiencing an average annual rate of growth of around 6 percent since the early 1980s.Though,moderate compared to the performance of several east Asian economies during the same period, this was quite impressive compared to the performance of Indian economy during the preceding three decades when the average growth logged 3.5 per cent per annum. In terms of per capita income ,the improvement has been even more remarkable- around 4percent per annum in the recent period as compared to less than 1.5 percent in the earlier period .Further ,during the recent period, there has been a steady acceleration in the growth performance over the years. The average compound growth per annum was 5.7 percent during the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980-85), 6percent during the Seventh Plan(1985-90) and 6.6percent during the Eighth Plan (1992-97).While the growth rate dropped to 3.1 percent during the two-year period 1990-92 in the wake of international payment crisis and the introduction of major economic reforms, the growth process picked up in the subsequent years. Indeed, the growth averaged about 7.5 percent during the three year period ending1996-97 which is impressive by any standards. In contrast to stagnation or negative growth of most of the east Asian economies, India's performance is remarkable.

As it is to be expected, improvement in economic growth and per capita income translated, at least partly, into reduction in the level of the poverty in the country. Though there are differences in the estimates of the percentage of the poor by different sources, all agree that there has been a secular decline in the share of poor in the population since the late 1970s. The official estimates of population below poverty line fell from 51.3 in 1997-78 to 44.5 in 1983,38.9 in 1987-88,36 in 1993-94,and29.2 in 1996-97.The period since1980 has been the introduction/expansion of several anti-poverty programmes and public intervention policies in favor of the poor including public distribution of subsidized foodgrains. The reduction in poverty in the recent period is attributed to anti-poverty programmes by their protagonists and to accelerated economic growth by market friendly experts.

Along with faster economic growth and reduction in poverty, there has been accelerated improvement in various indicators of human development since the early 1980s whether it is in the case of demographic characteristics or social development indicators. During the last two decades, the country has made major strides in health and education sectors. The economy got diversified significantly and the share of the service sector in employment and incomes improved considerably. While there is a broad consensus on the overall improvement of the economy and quality of life ,there are significantly differing perceptions about the distributional impacts of these gains.

Disparities in economic and social development across the regions and intra regional disparities among different segments of the society have been the major reasons for adopting planning in India since independence. Apart from massive investments in backward regions, various public policies directed at encouraging private investments in such regions have been pursued during the first three decades of planned development. While efforts to reduce regional disparities were not lacking, achievements were disproportionately low. Considerable level of regional disparities remained at the end of the 1970s. The accelerated economic growth since the early 1980s appears to have aggravated regional disparities. The ongoing economic reforms since 1991 with stabilisation and deregulation policies as their central themes seem to have further widened the regional disparities.

Within this background ,the paper considered the analysis of the 15 state of the India union in the context of development indicators like urbanisation ,level of literacy, infant mortality and public finance.

The share of urban population in India was 25.7 percent in 1991. While all the state except Haryana had higher share of urban population and all states except west Bengal had urban population share below national average .The most Urbanised state is Maharastra and the least urbanised state is Haryana.The higher level of urbanisation in different state is due to existence of million plus cities or popularly known as metro cities.

The level of literacy is, perhaps, the most important index of development of a society. Male literacy is higher than female literacy is a proof of backward society.

Often there may be significant gender gap in literacy. The true index of development of a society is the female literacy which ca be considered as the bottom line as far as literacy is concerned . State wise percentage of literate females above 7 years of age as per 1991 census is given in column 3 of Table 1. All the states except Andhra Pradesh have female literacy level above the national average of 39.3 percent. The distinction of highest female literacy goes to Keral where 86 out of every100 females above 7 years are literate.

The gap between Kerala and the rest of the country in female literacy is, indeed, phenomenal. Rajasthan is the least literate state where female literacy is as low as 20 percent, which implies that out of every five females in Rajasthan four are illiterate. The female literacy in other three north Indian states (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh0 are also below 30 percent. The empirically well-established positive relationship between female illiteracy and TFR is quite evident in the case of the above mentioned states. It is quite evident that the critical precondition for stabilisation of Indian population is to raise the female literacy in the above mentioned states. Rather than the level of female literacy it is the gender difference in literacy which captures the state of women in a society.

As against all India average of 52.8 female literacy as a percentage of male literacy varies from 91.6 percent in Keral to allow of 24.4 percent in Rajasthan. In all the four states mentioned above, this percentage remains below40 indicating very low economic and social status of women.

An important indicator of the quality of healthcare in a society is the infant mortality rate (IMR). It is an accepted phenomena that the lower the IMR better is the health care. The worst IMR figures are in the Orissa(105) and Madhya Pradesh(101).These figures mean that in these two states, out of every 10 newborn females, at least one will not live to see her birthday.

The most common indicator of the economic development of a society is the per capita annual income generated by it. An important structural change in the economy in the process of development is the decline of income generated in the agricultural sector and the increase in the manufacturing sector. The level of poverty or the share of population which don’t have minimum income to meet its basic requirements is an indicator of the level of economic development as well as the inequality in the income distribution.

It is note worthy that Keral, which has made greater stride in social development, has the lowest per capita income .It may, perhaps, convey an important message that high level of social development is achievable even at relatively low levels of per capita incomes. Indeed, the case of Keral along with that of Sri Lanka has been noted internationally for achieving high levels of human development at relatively low level of economic development.

Ten out of 15 states considered have share of agriculture higher than the national level. Maharashtra and Tamilnadu are the only two states which have reduced the share of agriculture in their NSDP to that level. Two of the most prosperous states, Punjab and Haryana remain largely agrarian.

Gujarat with27.1 percent share of manufacturing in NSDP has the highest level followed by Maharashtra (24.1 percent) and Tamilnadu (23.7 Percent). Indeed, these states have emerged as the major manufacturing states in the country, together accounting for about45 percent of the NSDP from manufacturing .

An aspect which needs special attentions the fact that Maharashtra’s poverty level is above the national average even though the state enjoys very high level of per capita income and is high in the hierarchy in terms of most of the indices of development including social development. Maharashtra is, indeed, an interesting case study of intrastate disparities.