Assessing the Extent of Rural Development in Punjab

Rural development is widely acclaimed as a tool for economic development of any region by the policy makers. Being a multi-level and multi-faceted process, the actual status of rural development is insuperable to assess through the individual scrutiny of either one or a few development indicators. Therefore, the present study endeavours to reckon district level rural development and its disparities in Punjab through the formulation of a composite rural development index (RDI) encompassing four dimensions, namely rural economy, rural social transformation, rural health and education and rural infrastructure at five points in time, that is, 1981, 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2018 based on 29 development indicators. The findings of the study revealed a lopsided picture of rural development with a concentration of frontrunner districts mainly in the Doaba belt, while mediocre and laggard categories are dominated by the districts of the Malwa belt. Further, reduction in the level of inter-district disparities in rural development has also been observed over the study period. It is suggested that mediocre as well as laggard districts should be prioritised in resource allocation to curtail the extent of rural development disparities in the state. JEL Codes: C38, H54, O10, R10