Role of socio-economic factors on imbalanced regional development in West Bengal, India

Regional imbalances caused by several factors due to misallocation and misutilazation of resources (Baskin, 1966). Imbalances may be defined as the disparities and uneven distribution of different socioeconomic indicators within a particular geographical region. Uneven distribution may be natural as well as man made. Different government policies are responsible for irregular distribution of socio-cultural components. Disparities are considered within a region considering one unit as ultimate level of development and comparing with that unit deprivation level is measured for the other units. So, regional disparities are basically intra-regional (Ray, 2001). Infrastructural facilities are like transport network, degree of urbanization, industry, medical facilities are very irregularly distributed in different districts of West Bengal. To find out the socio-economic disparities in West Bengal for all 18 districts except Kolkata, levels of distribution of 30 small indicators are calculated. Attempts have been made in this paper to show regional disparities and how such disparities can be removed is tried to explain.


INTRODUCTION
Planned and proper development can improve overall improvement of citizen.But in reality such developments are very much irregular and partial either man made or natural.Different planning processes are adopted to develop any area but results are always not positive.
Different parameters are become barrier in case of overall development.Owing to physical and socio-cultural diversities and even political reason uncontrolled and unchecked development occurred which leads to disparities.
The regional disparity in India is now serious matter for the Government.These disparities lead to different movements in different parts of the country.Our country is now standing in front of fire as some regions are very backward.Terrorists choose these areas as their shelter with the help of some local habitats.

Study area
The state of West Bengal is chosen to show disparities.The state is lying between 21°, 25', 24'' and 27, °13', 15'' north latitudes and 85, °48', 20''and 89,°53', 04''east longitudes.The State shares its borders with three different nations in the East by Bangladesh, North by Bhutan and North West by Nepal with four other Indian States viz Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam and Sikkim in the South west, West and North respectively.There are 19 districts.The Kolkata district, capital of the state is excluded from such studies as it is not comparable with other districts for its ultimate facilities.

Objectives
The study has some specific objectives: 1.To investigate the imbalances in the context of development in the study area.2. To find out the causes and emergence of imbalances in the region of study.3. To find out the socio-economic backward areas in the light of development so that planers and decision makers can take measures to resolve the problems.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Development and deprivation are just two opposites sides.To analyze level of disparities statistical information are collected (Sarkar and Basu Roy, 2011).The entire information and data are taken mainly from two secondary sources-Statistical handbook and district census handbook.30 indicators have been selected to show the regional disparities marked as X1, X2, X3, and X4 to X30.
These are grouped in six categories under different heads: health, education, economy, agriculture, rural infrastructure and transport-communication.These indicators are representatives values in different socio economic fields from which inter district disparities can be assumed.Not all indicators can be accompanied in the studies as these are not available.However data is computed in three methods namely:

Deprivation index
Following deprivation method, with the selected variables, levels of deprivations are identified in each districts mathematically as: Where, Iij indicates deprivation index of the ith variable at jth unit of study.Maxi and Mini denotes maximum and minimum values of ith variable in the series respectively.Xij denotes original value of ith variable at jth unit of study.The value ranges from 0 (absence of deprivation) to 1(Highest deprived).

Average deprivation index
Average deprivation index is calculated by taking simple averages of all indicators in a group of study.The equation is: Where, Ij is Average Deprivation Index of jth unit of study, n is the no. of indicators under consideration in a particular group.

Developmental index
Finally development index (D.I) is made as the absence of deprivation with mutual relation among the districts.Mathematically it is expressed as: DI is actually development in jth unit of study. 1 is absolute developed condition and deviation from that is developmental index.

Ranking
Ranking is done on the basis of development index.It is calculated on the basis of each groups averaging.Mathematically it is expressed as:

Range = (Highest value-Lowest value) / N
N is the no. of ranking groups.If it is 3 then simple way is grouped in high, moderate and low dividing 3 equal zones.The indices which are tabulated and stated in methodology cause Sarkar 11 disparities in the districts (Statistical Handbook, 2008).The main indices are health, education, economy, recreation, agriculture and Transport-communication.These are described below.In each case three groups are marked as high, moderate and low.

Health
It is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (WHO).It is an important indicator for development.
Health indicators can be used to define public health problems at a particular point of time to indicate change over time in the level of the health of a population or individual, to define differences in the health of populations and to assess the extent to which the objectives of a program are being reached.Health facilities are vital now days.Without proper facilities of health and medical facilities modern society cannot be able to progress.Here 5 indicators (X1 to X5) are taken in health indices are number of health centers, public health centers, public health sub centers, doctors and hospital beds in each districts per 10,000 populations (Provisional Population Totals, 2001).
The district wise distribution of composite score indicated that highest development is caused in Darjeeling (0.79) followed by Purulia (0.62) while least developed districts are North 24 Parganas (0.23), Uttar Dinajpur ( 0.24) and Malda (0.29). Number

Education
Education is a crucial social factor for the overall development of a society.It is the single dominating factor for progress of civilization, human creativity and culture is based upon this.In Jalpaiguri district literacy rate is below average than the state.
Here, 5 indicators (X6 to X10) are chosen for education indices are number of primary schools, secondary and senior secondary Schools, number of degree colleges, number of professional colleges per 10,000 population and percentage of female literates.West Midnapore is least deprived in number of primary schools (0.00) within the state followed by Purulia District.Birbhum district (0.00) is least deprived in number of high schools followed by Bankura.In the indicators of number of colleges per 10,000 populations (X8) the most deprived district is Uttar Dinajpur followed by Bardwan, privileged district is Darjeeling.Professional College per 10,000 populations (X9) is maximum in Darjeeling followed by Burdwan.Female literacy (X10) is maximum in East Midnapore and minimum female literacy is in Uttar Dinajpur and Purulia (table 2 and 3).

Economy
Development is directly co-related with economy.To show disparities in economy, 5 indicators (X11 to X15) (table 4) are selected based on availability of data, percentage of workers to total population, number of commercial banks per 10,000 population, per capita domestic product to total population and number of  industrial projects implemented per 10,000 population and credit deployment ratio.There are many more indicators for regional disparities which cannot be incorporated.
From the development index it is found that maximum average level of development is occurred in Howrah

Agriculture
Agriculture is the backbone of the state's economy (Hussain, 1996).Increasing population squeezes the land; as a result landless agricultural laborers have been increased.After independence, influx of refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and excessive population pressure on land have changed the cultural landscape and agriculture.5 indicators (X16 to X20): Percentage of financial outlay by RKVY, cultivable land, irrigated land, number of warehouses and fertilizer consumed per 10,000 population are considered for agricultural indices.Financial outlay through RKVY (X16) is maximum in Nadia followed by Birbhum and South 24 Parganas, while most deprived district is Darjeeling (table 5).
In case of cultivable land per 10,000 populations (X17) most deprived district is Howrah.Availability of agricultural land is maximums in Purulia followed by Irrigation benefit (X18) is highly deprived in Darjeeling (1.00), Purulia, Jalpaiguri and Howrah district.Warehouses facilities (X19) are very important for agricultural stocks in post harvesting period.This is maximum in Dakshin Dinajpur, Nadia districts and very poor condition prevails in North and South Parganas.Consumption of fertilizers is now a day's very crucial factor for modern agriculture in any region.
In per hectare consumption (X20), it is maximum in Howrah followed by Hooghly and East Midnapore and lowest in Purulia.The district wise distribution of composite score indicated that highest development in Agriculture is caused in Birbhum district; subsequent districts are Dakshin Dinajpur, Nadia and Hooghly districts.The deprived districts are Darjeeling, South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Jalpaiguri.
of health centers per 10000 populations (X1) is highest in Jalpaiguri District and deprived districts are Malda Birbhum and Dakshin Dinajpur.Public Health center (X2) is maximum in Purulia and minimum in North 24 Parganas.Public health sub center is highest in Dakshin Dinajpur and lowest is in Nadia.Number of doctors per 10,000 populations (X4) is highest in Darjeeling district followed by Burdwan and Howrah while lowest is in Malda followed by East Midnapore and Uttar Dinajpur.It is fact that the districts nearer to Kolkata enjoy more facilities from Kolkata.Numbers of hospital beds (X5) are highly uneven.Most deprived district is North 24 Parganas (1.00) followed by Uttar Dinajpur (table 1).

Table 1 .
Indicators of development.

Table 2 .
Deprivation index for health indicator in West Bengal 2008-2009.
Source: Data is computed by the author

Table 3 .
Deprivation index for education indicator in West Bengal 2008 to 2009.
Source: Data is computed by the author.

Table 4 .
Deprivation index for economic indicator in West Bengal 2008 to 2009.