Governance Performance of Indian States

Building on a methodology developed in an earlier paper, the results of an exercise in ranking Indian states based on five sets of criteria--infrastructure, social services, fiscal performance, justice, law and order, and quality of the legislature--are presented to show how states have fared relative to each other between 2001-02 and 2011-12. What emerges is that five of the six best-performing states of 2001 were also the best performers in 2011. Similarly, four of the six worst performers of 2001 were also among the worst performers of 2011. A consequence of such stickiness of rankings at the top and the bottom is growing regional disparity between the more- and less-developed states.

In the preparation of this paper we have benefi ted a great deal from comments received in seminars that were given at the Asian Development Bank, Manila, February 2015; the Global Observer Foundation, New Delhi, February 2015; the Institute for South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Singapore, April 2015; and the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, October 2015. However, the authors are solely responsible for the views expressed and results reported in the paper.