Journal of Regional Development and Planning, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2012 71 REGIONAL DISPARITY IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT: A DISTRICT- LEVEL ANALYSIS FOR UTTAR PRADESH Rakesh Raman & Reena Kumari 1 The growth of agriculture is prerequisite for overall development of Indian economy. It contributes significantly to the export earnings and affects the performance of other sectors of the economy through forward and backward linkages. The present paper analyses district and regional level disparity in agriculture development in Uttar Pradesh on a number of agricultural parameters. It uses UNDP methodology (subsequently used by a number of others) to standardize various indicators for agricultural attainment in the state of Uttar Pradesh using 13 agricultural development indicators. A composite index has been constructed at the district level and also regional level for two cross-section years 1990-91 and 2008-09. The relative variations and changes in ranks of different districts have been computed during the period under consideration. Evidence shows existence of high and persistent inter-state disparity in agriculture in the state over the years. The transformation of some districts from the level of relatively underperformer to the rank of better performer and vice versa has been witnessed and explained. The findings encourage the authors to conclude that a more determined effort on the part of the policy makers is needed if the development policy has to be made truly inclusive. INTRODUCTION Indian economy at the dawn of 21 st century finds itself at the cross-roads. Last few years have seen its transformation from an ailing agricultural economy to a rapidly growing one with services sector emerging as the power house for the economy. The economy has experienced an average annual growth rate of approximately 6 to 8 per cent during the last two decades. As is to be expected, improvement in economic growth and per capita income has translated, at least partly, into reduction in the level of poverty in the country and accelerated improvement in various indicators of human development. However, there is a broad consensus among critics as regards growth not being inclusive and balanced. It is claimed that there exist huge diversity and regional disparity across the economy at state level. The gap between rich and poor regions that existed even at the time of independence has widened over the years and significantly intensified during the period of reforms. There exists voluminous literature dealing with the issue of regional disparity. Most studies have targeted state as unit for measuring disparity and have sought to gauge the impact of development policy on relative development of the states. The findings of such studies have been used by government agencies to frame policies to promote balanced regional development. These policies have met with limited success and not only disparity has increased but has started showing its ugliest face. One significant factor causing limited success to efforts of balanced developments has been the neglect of variations within states and exclusive reliance on information relating to disparity at the state level. For a huge country like India where some of the states are bigger than 1 Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow respectively at Department of Economics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi – 221005; contact: raireena86@gmail.com