Resource Prospects from the Rural Sector- A Comment

August 2, 1969 P Venkatramaiah DHAR and Sastry (Vol IV, No 12, p 535) taking energy consumption as an indicator of industrial growth and using shift technique arrive at the conclusion that regional variations in manufacturing industry have tended to narrow down over a large part of the country. They recognise that a composite index is the ideal one for measuring growth but they do not attempt the construction of such an index because of familiar awkward problems like assigning of appropriate weights. If a conclusion is to be drawn on Inter-State variations on the basis of a single index like energy consumption, it is implicit that the index is given the greatest weight. As such the question of weightage is not avoided.