The perils of the beaten track

On 23 December 2014, the Government of Maharashtra tabled in the state Assembly the much awaited
report of the High Level Committee on Balanced Regional Development Issues in Maharashtra, headed
by the Chairperson of the 13 th Finance Commission, and former Finance Secretary to the Government of
India, Vijay Kelkar.
The Kelkar Committee report, as it is popularly called, was actually submitted to the Government in
October 2013, but for reasons best known to itself, the then Congress-NCP government had not made it
public.
The imbalance in the development of different regions in Maharashtra has been a vexed issue ever since
the formation of the state, with the regions of Vidarbha and Marathwada feeling aggrieved over their
underdevelopment vis--vis western Maharashtra. In 1984, the Government of Maharashtra had
constituted a similar committee headed by the well-known economist V.M. Dandekar. The constitution of
the Kelkar Committee in 2011 was a reminder that the issue remained unresolved.
Thus, the report of the committee has been eagerly awaited. The fact that one of the regions, Vidarbha, has
been affected by a severe crisis in agriculture and has witnessed large scale suicides of farmers during the
last decade has made the issues dealt with in the report even more urgent.
Since imbalance in development of different parts is not an issue limited to Maharashtra, the report of the
committee could be relevant for many other parts of the country too.
Important recommendations
The Kelkar committee has made several important recommendations, which constitute a fresh approach to
understanding and addressing the issue of developmental imbalance.
Till now, the imbalance was seen mainly in terms of imbalance in allocation of financial resources, and
hence the means to address it was also seen as allocation of higher resources to the aggrieved regions.
This approach has had limited impact.

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The Kelkar committee emphasises that it makes important departures from the past, recognising the
importance of physical inputs and financial provisions as relevant policy instruments without making a
fetish of them.
It notes that The approach so far was excessively focused on physical inputs and financial allocations
alone. This approach has proved to be ineffective and inadequateSeveral aspects and sources of growth,
issues of Governance, supportive policies distinguished by regions were not sufficiently considered. We
have emphasized greater focus on outcomes, and advocated monitoring of outcomes as the principle
focus.
The Committee also recognises that even as one talks of balanced development, each region has different
natural endowments, different cultures, history, administration, and hence its not possible to have the same

kind of developmental trajectories everywhere. Yet, there are certain parameters of human development
that are necessary constituents of fundamental well-being, common to all regions.