Regions in Indian Development

r HE SOUTH ASIAN subcontinent contains only a small number of nation-states but an almost infinite number of social arrangements and physical ecologies-which have determined a wide variety of development models.' This paper is designed to capture some of the salient features of three such models, to evaluate them, and to suggest some of the motive principles upon which they are based and some of the research priorities towards which they point. I believe that these three models describe the extreme types between which lie most of the development experiences in South Asia and, by extension, many other LDCs. I believe further that each model raises certain essential questions-and that certain simple empirical research needs to be done in each case to throw light on the answers to those questions. Generally, development has two elements. One is a rising level of productivity of the economy as a whole, stemming from capital accumulation and increased x-efficiency, to use Harvey Leibenstein's term. (X-efficiency corresponds to the naive concept of efficiency as getting ever more and more from given bundles of productive factors.) The second element is a rising social consciousness-knowledge of, and ability to affect the social and natural environment-as evidenced not only in higher productivity but especially in heightened literacy, social participation, and standards of health. If you will, heightened social consciousness increases the efficiency of people both as producers and consumers, and leads to a rising standard of human well-being. The uneven development of these two factors determines to a great extent the overall efficiency of development as measured by the volume of welfare which a given amount of resources produces, the equity of economic development and the ecological fit of the development. It is only through decentralized participation that low resourceusing technologies can normally be exploited, and a development

Economic geography · Geography · Economic Theory and Policy · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Indian Economic and Social Development

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