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 socio-economic 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. Key words: Regional disparities, infrastructural facilities, intra-regional, indicators.