(a) India has wide-ranging regional disparities in economic development. Explain the patterns, implications and challenges. (20…

(a) Regional disparities in economic development: patterns, implications and challenges

Regional disparity is a persistent gap between regions in income, output, infrastructure and human development. In India these gaps go back to a colonial economy built around port cities. Differences in resources, terrain and policy have since widened them.

Patterns

• West and south against east and centre: Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana and the NCR hold most of India's manufacturing and services. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh have much lower per capita state domestic product. NITI Aayog's National MPI for 2019–21 put about 34% of Bihar's population in multidimensional poverty, against under 1% in Kerala.
• Coast against interior: port-hinterland belts such as Mumbai–Pune and Ahmedabad–Surat pull ahead of plateau and forest districts.
• Core against periphery: Himalayan, North-Eastern and tribal Central Indian districts are held back by rugged terrain and poor connectivity.
• Within states: Marathwada and Vidarbha trail western Maharashtra, and Bundelkhand trails western UP.
• Agrarian gradient: the irrigated Punjab–Haryana belt contrasts with rain-fed dryland in the Deccan and Rajasthan.

Implications

• Workers migrate out of Bihar and UP in distress, crowding the metros and swelling informal work there.
• Human development and fertility are uneven, which shapes debates on delimitation and devolution.
• Fiscal friction: the 15th Finance Commission gave "income distance" a 45% weight in horizontal devolution, and richer states say this penalises them.
• Demands for separate statehood (Telangana) and Left Wing Extremism in backward mineral-rich tribal belts.

Challenges

• Capital and skills keep accumulating in core regions, which reinforces the gap.
• Lagging states have weak administrative capacity to absorb and spend funds.
• Mineral wealth flows out of producing regions while displacement stays local.
• Floods in north Bihar and Assam, and drought in the Deccan, raise the cost of development.

The Aspirational Districts Programme (2018, 112 districts), the Aspirational Blocks Programme and Finance Commission transfers address these gaps. Durable balance, though, needs place-based industrial corridors and human-capital investment in lagging regions.

(b) Variations in the nature of India's glaciers and emerging issues due to climate change

India's glaciers stretch from the Karakoram and Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. Their nature varies with climate regime, form and debris cover.

Variations

• Source of snow: Karakoram and Western Himalayan glaciers, such as Siachen (about 75 km) and those of Zanskar and Lahaul, are fed mainly by winter snow from western disturbances. Central and Eastern Himalayan glaciers such as Gangotri, Milam and Zemu are monsoon-fed "summer-accumulation" types. Because they gain and lose mass in the same season, they are more sensitive to warming.
• Form: large valley glaciers such as Gangotri (about 30 km) sit alongside small cirque and hanging glaciers in the Pir Panjal and Dhauladhar.
• Surface: thick debris on many ablation zones insulates the ice, while clean ice dominates at higher elevations.
• Response: many Karakoram glaciers are stable or surging (the "Karakoram anomaly"), but most Himalayan glaciers are retreating. Gangotri's snout at Gaumukh retreated about 1.1 km between 1936 and 1996.

Emerging issues

• Faster mass loss: ICIMOD's 2023 assessment found Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers vanished 65% faster in 2011–20 than in the previous decade. On current emission paths they could lose up to 80% of their volume by 2100.
• GLOFs: retreating ice leaves moraine-dammed lakes. The South Lhonak outburst of October 2023 destroyed the Teesta III dam at Chungthang, Sikkim, and Chorabari lake contributed to the Kedarnath disaster of 2013. NDMA's GLOF mitigation programme now covers Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh.
• River regimes: melt water is expected to peak around mid-century and then decline. That threatens lean-season flow in the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra, and with it hydropower and irrigation.
• Slope hazards: thawing permafrost triggers rock–ice avalanches such as Chamoli in 2021.
• Livelihood and strategic stress: the Siachen and Ladakh sectors are affected, along with Himalayan pastoralism.

Systematic monitoring, early warning and careful regulation of hydropower in glacial valleys are therefore essential.

(c) Domestic tourism and its local resource potential: reasons and dimensions

Domestic tourism is travel by India's own residents within India. There were about 2,509 million domestic tourist visits in 2023. Its potential rests on local resources that almost every district has.

Reasons for the potential

• Physical diversity: hill stations, the Thar, the Western Ghats, beaches, backwaters, wildlife reserves and river islands such as Majuli.
• Religious and cultural depth: char dham, jyotirlinga, Buddhist, Sufi and Sikh circuits generate mass, repeat travel that is less sensitive to price.
• Living heritage: fairs such as Pushkar and Hornbill, regional cuisines, and crafts such as Pochampally, Channapatna and Madhubani.
• Demand: rising middle-class incomes, UDAN flights, expressways and online booking.

Dimensions

• Economic: tourism is labour-intensive, and spending on homestays, guides, transport and crafts stays local, so the multiplier is high.
• Spatial: it carries development to peripheral hill, coastal and tribal districts such as Spiti, Ziro and Gokarna.
• Socio-cultural: it builds national integration (Dekho Apna Desh), revives crafts and performing arts, and gives women income through homestays and self-help groups.
• Policy: Swadesh Darshan 2.0 funds sustainable destinations, PRASHAD develops pilgrimage centres, and the Vibrant Villages Programme targets border villages.
• Environmental: exceeding carrying capacity strains fragile towns, as in Joshimath and Manali, so eco-tourism norms and visitor caps are needed.

With community ownership, last-mile connectivity and sustainability norms, domestic tourism can turn local resources into lasting livelihoods and more balanced regional development.