Dissecting Lopsided Development

An Inquiry into the Punjab-Bihar Developmental Dichotomy

Abstract

Since Independence, India's rapid economic growth, with an average growth rate of 8.7% in GDP, has been one of the fastest-growing economies globally. However, the laurels of development weren’t even. The asymmetries in the Canadian-modelled quasi-federal structure manifests directly in the developmental processes over the decades. With a population of 2.77 crores, Punjab has a GDP of US$70 billion, an unemployment rate of 7.3%. Punjab has an infant mortality rate of 21 out of 1000 children. However, the poverty rate of Bihar is 33.73%, with a GDP of US$100 billion, the highest unemployment rate of 10%, a HDI score of 0.576 and an infant mortality rate of 46.8 out of 1000 children. This paper attempts a comparison of the developmental processes of these two states, at the tail ends of the coveted spectrum of development, from a sophisticated policy perspective.