Some Indians are rich while the others are poor. There has been a large gap between the two classes of masses that has developed in the country. The uneven distribution of wealth is something that can be held responsible for the huge gap. Also it has been seen that various states like Jharkhand and Chattisgarh in spite of being mineral rich are lagging behind many other states in terms of education and human development. Know all the reasons in the article below.
India: Distribution of Wealth-
It was in the 1980s when the country's economy began improving but the money was accumulated in just a few states. Still more than half of the country's GDP is generated by 5 states only. These are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. These states contributed to 47% of India's GDP alone in 2019. However their similar size could not ensure the same level of development across the states. The per capita income and per capita GDP is also different in these states.
India’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) increased five times between 2000 and 2019. It increased from $ 443 in 2000 to $2014 in 2019. However this is not decisive in the fact that the income of the whole population has increased. Still the top one percent of the Indians earn almost 21 % of the total country's economy in 2019.
Top 10 percent of Indians earned 56% of the country's total income in 2019. The bottom 10% earned only 3.5% of the total economy. Out of these 10% richest Indians earn 80.7% of the total GDP.
The Gini Coefficient points to an increasing inequality in India. The coefficient in 2014 was 34.4% . The coefficient increased to 35.7% in 2011 and to 47.9% in 2018. India is only second to Russia in the world in terms of inequality.
Now, considering the reports, 5 richest and the poorest states have risen by 145% in 2018-19 to 322% when compared with the situation back at the outset of the 21st century.
Agricultural work is one of the major routes to livelihood in villages. Yet the government lags in developing good policies for the farmers.
Related| List of Government Banks in India in 2021
Reasons of unequal distribution of wealth:
Inheritance: There were many people in India who were born with a silver spoon. People with lands were also born in the same country where there were landless farmers.
History of India: The British Government developed only the ports and cities that were already developing that would support their trade.
Capitalist Ideas: Private investors are concentrated in the areas that are already developed. They make the areas where electricity and water facilities along with other basic facilities are present, their homes and offices.
This is the reason why many states are underdeveloped compared to others.
The geographical difficulties must also be included as a major factor in the development of various areas. Impoverished regions in India exist at many places due to highly prone flood lands and landslides in the mountain terrains. Examples of these can be Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh.
The development of Chota Nagpur Plateau is very difficult due to the dense forests and difficult terrains.
Haryana, Punjab and Western UP came under Green Revolution due to their good geographical locations and terrains.
Over Centralised Policies: Many experts are of the belief that over centralised policies of Indian Economists have been a reason for growing inequality of wealth in the country.
Freight equalization policy: The freight equalization policy in 1952 was used as a curse for the resource rich eastern states of India as said by Pranab Mukherjee. Under this policy the Central Government heavily subsidised the mineral transportation costs from resource rich states to interior location based production units. This policy affected the development of Bihar, MP, West Bengal and Odisha too.
The increase in productivity leads to the proliferation of technology, which, in turn, creates a higher demand for skilled workers.
Lack of knowledge in workers: A large numbers of the labour force work in sectors with low productivity. For example, agriculture provides 53 per cent jobs, while contributing only 17 per cent to the GDP.
Failure of Land Reforms: This has been one of the major reasons in worsening the situation of already poor population of India.
Comments
All Comments (0)
Join the conversation