Assessing The Level of Agricultural Development Among the Hill States of India

The geographically isolated hill states of India are some of the most backward states of India in terms of economic development. Having limited access to national and international markets, agricultural development becomes very essential for the economic growth of these regions. The present paper seeks to study the regional variations in agricultural development considering certain key indicators relevant to the study area. In this work, various indices have been prepared using several variables, related to the indexes. The Z-score standardization method has been incorporated by standardizing the variables and finally preparation of a composite index, which ultimately reflects the agricultural disparity among the hill states. The results show considerable development in North Indian hilly states while agricultural development is very low in the northeast Indian states, especially Sikkim, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh.