Gopal Krishan
Political Economy of Backward Area Development Programmes in India
Abstract
The present paper is a critique of the Government of India’s programmes/schemes for promoting development in backward areas. It deals with issues relating to conceptualization of area backwardness and identification of backward areas/districts. An attempt is also made to trace the trajectory of measures taken to address the problem and to look at the politico-economic dimension of the entire process. A basic question is why areas/districts identified as backward under any programme/scheme generally persisted with that nomenclature for an indefinite time? Why a blanket approach was adopted in treating backward districts as one category by way of usually funding them equitably despite wide variations in their population and area size, terrain and accessibility conditions, and nature and intensity of problem, resulting in a big difference in their per unit cost of development? Above all, why the backward area programmes/schemes could not make the desired impact
Krishan, Gopal 2020: Political Economy of Backward Area Development Programmes in India. Területfejlesztés és Innováció, 13(1-2) pp. 3-11.
