The Planning Commission, in consultation with the Union ministry of Rural Development, has ranked 447 districts of the country on an index of backwardness. In its May 2003 report, the ‘Task force on identification of districts for wage and self employment programmes’ had selected three variables for computing the index of backwardness. These were: agricultural productivity per worker, agricultural wage rate and schedule caste (SC)/schedule tribe (ST) population.

The Planning Commission confined the ranking to 447 districts, and used data on agricultural productivity from 17 states. Goa and all special category states, except Assam and the Union Territories, were excluded from the analysis. The task force did not include urban agglomerates of over one million population as per the 2001 census, and state capitals.

Methodology
Both distributional and economic parameters were used for ranking the districts. The SC/ST population was a distributional parameter, while output per agricultural workers and agricultural wages represented average income level parameters.

The lower the index value, the more backward the district. In the SC/ST population parameter, the district with a higher SC/ST population was more backward. The districts with a higher percentage of SC/ST population had a lower index value. The districts with low wages, low productivity and high SC/ST population were ranked backward.

The analysis of the study found that backward districts are largely confined to central and eastern regions of India.

 Variables considered for computing the index

 Agricultural wages
High agricultural wages indicated high demand for agricultural labour, while low agricultural wages implied low economic activity, poor infrastructure and low employment opportunities.

According to the task force, agricultural wages indicated the income levels of the rural population. Wage rates for field workers were used for this exercise. However due to paucity of data on employment and wage rates for male, female and child labour for all districts, the average of monthly and category-wise wages of male workers in each district was used for the analysis.

The information on agricultural wages at the district level was sourced from The Agricultural Wages in India; 1995-96, 1996-97, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi, 2001

 Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe Population
According to the task force, the region’s SC/ST population was also an indicator of its backwardness. The SC/ST population comprises bulk of the agricultural labour class in rural areas. Though the number of agricultural labourers in a district would be a more appropriate indicator for selection of districts for wage employment programmes, considering the concentration of SCs/STs in the agricultural labour class, the task force analysed the district-wise SC/ST population. The SC/ST population in the 1991 census was considered in the analysis.

 Agricultural productivity per worker
The task force used productivity per agricultural worker as an indicator of agricultural performance of a district. As an indicator, productivity per agricultural worker highlighted the ability of the agricultural system to provide wage employment to agricultural workers. Lower the agricultural productivity per worker; the lower would be the capacity of farmers to engage hired labour. The data was sourced from a 1979 Planning Commission study (updated in 2001) on growth performance of agricultural output at the district level.  

	Click here to download the ranking of 447 districts on Index of Backwardness
	For further information contact:  richard@cseindia.org