Identification of Micro Regional Disparities in The Level of Development in The Rural Areas: A Case Study of Malda District of West Bengal (India)

The process of development involves a significant change in the economic activities over different regions along with a change in the structure of the economy. The socioeconomic change does not take place uniformly in different areas and it is also different in rural and urban areas of same region. Regional disparities are caused by a number of factors that lead to misallocation, under utilization of resource, etc. Therefore, when development over different regions occurs unequally, it becomes politically imperative to resort to corrective policy measured. Regional disparities lead numerous economic, social, cultural problems. Regional balances leads to the under utilization or even for non-utilization of economic resource. In the present paper analyses has been made to study the imbalances in the level of development with spatial emphases on the regional dimension. To analyze the regional disparities of fifteen blocks of the district, thirty-eight variables have been selected. The identification of regional disparities and extend of interblocks disparities in seven service different sectors and overall has been measured by using the Development Index (Deprivation Method). In the analysis it has been observed that the blocks of English Bazar and Bamangola attained the top position in the every sector while the blocks like Harishchandrapur-II and Kaliachak-III attained low level of development. Viewing the existing wide regional imbalances, planner and decision-makers should make comprehensive policies to reduce the gap in the level of development.