Prosperity and deprivation have coexisted in Maharashtra ever since it was formed. Prosperous districts and cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Thane, and Kolhapur on the western side of the State coexist with the relatively backward regions of Vidarbha and Marathwada. The per capita nominal net domestic district product, a measure of per capita income, shows the degree of disparity. In 2022-23, the per capita income of Mumbai, Thane (including Palghar), Pune, Nagpur, and Kolhapur was higher than Rs.3 lakh each, and below Rs.1.5 lakh for districts such as Washim, Gadchiroli, Yavatmal, and Buldhana. A similar pattern can be seen in various social and human development indicators too.
The latest NITI Aayog report shows that in Nagpur, Pune, Sangli, and Wardha districts, 3-4 per cent of the population is deprived of multiple health and education benefits and basic household amenities, while more than 10 per cent of the people in several districts in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions are multidimensionally poor. This proportion is as high as 33 per cent and 24 per cent in Nandurbar and Dhule respectively.
Geographical diversity certainly creates natural variations in region-wise endowments and the structure of the local economy. However, when certain districts show signs of perpetual economic stagnation and restrict people’s freedom to live the life of their choice, one needs to raise questions about the long-term vision and effective functioning of the government.
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Among others, planning and creation and maintenance of infrastructural facilities form a key part of the government’s responsibilities, and these amenities have a strong link with overall economic and social development.
Infrastructure gaps
Government-supplied infrastructure such as electricity and water, transport facilities, and telecommunication systems and the availability of financial capital promote job creation and entrepreneurship. The building of these facilities itself stimulates the local economy by increasing demand for labour, heavy capital goods, land, and other resources. Education and health infrastructure makes a skilful and productive labour pool available locally. Easy access to health and education also enables different sections of the population to participate in the growth process.
Various public infrastructural facilities complement each other and aid economies to transit from low-productivity sectors to high-productivity ones. Infrastructural investment by the government, therefore, can generate sustained economic growth with inclusive and equal income distribution. On the other hand, deficiencies in public investment in infrastructure can create various destabilising forces such as influx of migrants, growth of the informal sector, and overburdened infrastructure in fast-growing regions coupled with deceleration in backward regions.
At a job fair in Chinchwad in 2019. Unemployment is a major issue in many regions within the State. | Photo Credit: DANISH SIDDIQUI/REUTERS
This dualism causes social unrest, an increase in the demand for job reservation, and political campaigns calling for the break-up of one State and its merger with another in the hopes of a better future.
Urban issues
Infrastructure development appears to be more advanced in urban areas than in rural ones. Even with this discrepancy, urban citizens frequently express their disappointment regarding the adequacy and quality of infrastructure delivered. Cities have become unsustainable, as evidenced by statistics such as per capita power generation, road length per thousand population, severe water scarcity, problems in waste management, and insufficient hospital beds relative to population. Rural areas, on the contrary, lack one to many of these amenities in convenient proximity. The issue of their maintenance and quality of services becomes secondary.
We measured the lack of infrastructural facilities at the village level by constructing an index. A total of 22 infrastructure facilities pertaining to general infrastructure (11 facilities), health (6), and education (5) were combined in the index.
General infrastructure includes facilities such as all-weather roads and internal roads, public transportation, telephone and broadband, electricity, banks, ATMs, markets, and ration stores. In the health dimension, we included the availability of anganwadi centres, mother and child health facilities, primary healthcare centres, accessibility to piped water, sanitary toilets, and drainage systems.
Education-related infrastructure was accessed by checking the availability of primary, middle, high, and secondary schools and vocational training centres within 10 kilometres of every village. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj’s village-level dataset, known as Mission Antyodaya, for 2019–20 was used to compute the multidimensional infrastructure deprivation index.
Defining deprivation
We defined deprivation as the absence of an amenity within 10 km of the village. The above public facilities are so essential for livelihood and to lead a dignified life that their absence even within 10 km should be taken seriously as it indicates the hardships and disadvantages faced by the villagers.
The distance criterion is also justified given the differences in population size between villages and geographical features such as water bodies, elevation, and so on. The non-availability of an amenity in a hamlet was assigned the value of 1 and 0 in all other cases. With averaging, the index scores ranged between 0 and 1. The upper bound indicates the lack of all infrastructure facilities and the lower bound shows the absence of deprivation, which is most desirable.
The ranking of States and districts based on deprivation score largely challenges the conventional belief about regional disparities within Maharashtra as well as the State’s position among all States and Union Territories (UTs) in the context of rural infrastructural backwardness.
How districts fare
As shown in Figure 1, Kolhapur has the least deprivation index score among all the districts of Maharashtra. Some of the better performing districts are Sangli, Solapur, and Dhule. The most backward districts in terms of rural public infrastructure are Hingoli, Parbhani, Gadchiroli, and Wardha. Districts such as Sangli, Sindhudurg, Hingoli, and Washim have a similar number of villages, but they stand at the opposite end of the spectrum as a result of differences in public infrastructure provisioning.
The 11 most impoverished districts of Maharashtra belong to the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions, with the exception of Bhandara and Gondia. The Aurangabad revenue division is the single largest contributor to multidimensional deprivation in the State. This is followed by Nagpur and Amravati subdivisions. Pune has the least multidimensional deprivation. The imbalances in the rural infrastructural availability are consistent with the larger pattern of regional inequality in the State.
Comparing States
In case of inter-State comparison (including UTs), Kerala is the most advanced, followed by Haryana, the UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Gujarat, and Punjab. The deprivation score of these States and UTs is nearly 0. Maharashtra, with a deprivation score of 0.109, stands 21st among all States and UTs.
It is noteworthy that the rural areas in States such as Bihar (ranked 15), Rajasthan (18), and Chhattisgarh (19) are better off than rural Maharashtra in the provisioning of public amenities. This is in line with recent findings by S. Bhalla and K. Bhasin, who wrote in Economic & Political Weekly (EPW) in July 2024 that that the incidence of rural poverty in Maharashtra at 26 per cent was higher than in Bihar (23.4 per cent).
We adopted a granular approach to identify particular geographic patterns, if any, in the deprivation that villages endure. For example, are villages with high deprivation scores surrounded by villages with similar levels of backwardness, or are the nearby villages comparatively prosperous?
Figure 2 shows the geographical distribution of leading and laggard villages in terms of public infrastructure. The red-coloured villages are those with high deprivation and which are surrounded by other similar impoverished villages. Villages forming clusters with low levels of deprivation in public infrastructure are indicated in blue. Green and black-coloured villages are anomalies or outliers. Villages in black are distinguished from other under-developed villages as they have more facilities. On the other hand, villages highlighted in green are highly deprived villages situated in the vicinity of prosperous villages in terms of public investment.
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Figure 2 largely resembles Figure 1, but the spatial analysis brings out distinctive features of regional disparities and deprivation. Across the State, we observed pockets of deprivation or pockets of abundance.
Even though western Maharashtra is composed of districts with lower deprivation scores, the clusters of backward villages can be observed in the tribal areas of Nandurbar and Palghar and the villages on the Sahyadri mountain range, along with various parts of Vidarbha and Marathwada. Although western and southern Maharashtra are generally well-developed, the border areas of Solapur and Sangli, and certain Konkan districts, are still comparatively undeveloped. On the other hand, Gondia and Bhandara report less spatial deprivation clustering than other Vidarbha districts.
Malnourished children being weighed at a remote village in Palghar district in 2016. Malnutrition continues to be a major problem in several districts of the State. | Photo Credit: PRASHANT NAKWE
The health infrastructure deprivation map (not included) looks much more similar to the one in Figure 2, whereas the education infrastructure deprivation map (not included) shows less clustering in Vidarbha but a lot more in Marathwada districts. Gadchiroli, the tribal districts of Palghar and Nandurbar, and the villages along the Sahyadri ridge continue to lack education-related infrastructure.
Regional imbalances
To summarise, the regional imbalances in public investment for rural infrastructure are largely consistent with the dualistic nature of regional development in Maharashtra. However, granularity in the data analysis establishes that multidimensional deprivation in Maharashtra is clustered in a fashion that goes beyond the usual understanding of a “backward” Vidarbha and Marathwada and an “economically prosperous”, better endowed western Maharashtra.
Deprivation spans administrative divisions and individual districts. We have established that the deprivation index scores are positively correlated with various under-development indicators such as low economic activity, undernutrition, and low non-farm female employment, as pointed out by Gharat et al. in “Multidimensional Deprivation Index and Spatial Clustering” (EPW). Therefore, the spatial pattern in deprivation in public infrastructure implies clustering of under-development too.
Investment in basic public infrastructure generates multifaceted benefits for government, producers, and local citizens. It may prove to be a straightforward solution to the complex problem of geographical concentration of under-development and widening regional inequality. Coordination and allocation of resources, which may require tier III governments to go beyond the official administrative boundaries, would be imperative to reduce regional disparities in Maharashtra.
Savita Kulkarni is with the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics.
Neeraj Hatekar is with Azim Premji University.
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