City shines, other areas lag behind

City shines, other areas lag behind
DH News Service, New Delhi:
Despite all the tall talk of taking development to the backward regions of Karnataka, most of the States growth is concentrated only in the capital city of Bangalore, the Planning Commission has warned.
In its latest report on “the states’ employment and poverty situation,” the Commission said though Karnataka’s growth rate had increased from 6.2 per cent in 2006-07 to 7 per cent during 2007-08, “most of it was Bangalore-centric” while the contribution of the rest of the State continued to be poor.

The report noted that Bangalore City alone contributed 22 per cent of the State’s total income and almost one fourth being generated by Bangalore Urban and Rural districts put together.

Interestingly, the incidence of poverty in Karnataka is 25 per cent against the all-India average of 27.5 per cent, while it is much higher than that of the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Similarly, Karnataka stood seventh in the country in terms of Human Development Index, while Kerala stood first and Tamil Nadu third at the all-India level. Karnataka’s per capita net State Domestic Product of Rs 23,945 was marginally better than the national average (Rs 22,946), but lower than that of Kerala (Rs 27,048) and Tamil Nadu (Rs 25,965). Bijapur, Bidar, Gulbarga and Raichur were the poorest in the State in terms of per capita domestic product. The labour productivity was the lowest in all north Karnataka districts barring Dharwad.



The State witnessed a structural transition in the composition of its domestic product with the share of primary sectors like agriculture, agribusiness, fishing and forestry declining sharply. During 1993-94 to 2003-04, manufacturing and service sectors grew at 7.50 and 10.61 per cent. The share of the primary sector in the Gross State Domestic Product fell from 38.10 per cent to 20.90 per cent but an increase in the share of the tertiary sector (transport, distribution and sale of goods, insurance, government, tourism, banking, retail and education fields) from 37.9 per cent to 54 per cent pushed up the overall growth rate in the State