Per-capita income is a criteria for development, however there are other
important criteria too. Explain with reference to Kerala and Punjab.
Answers
ow, what is the income of a
country? Intuitively, the income of the
country is the income of all the
residents of the country. This gives
us the total income of the country.
However, for comparison between
countries, total income is not such an
useful measure. Since, countries have
different populations, comparing total
income will not tell us what an average
person is likely to earn. Are people in
one country better off than others in a
different country? Hence, we compare
the average income which is the total
income of the country divided by its
total population. The average income
is also called per capita income.
the per capita income of Haryana, Kerala and Bihar.
Actually, these figures are of Per
Capita Net State Domestic Product at
Current Prices for 2016–17. Let us
ignore what this complicated term
exactly means. Roughly, we can take
it to be the per capita income of the
state. We find that of the three,
Haryana has the highest per capita income and Bihar is at the bottom.
This means that, on an average,
a person in Haryana earned
Rs 1,80,174 in one year whereas, on
an average, a person in Bihar earned
only around Rs 34,409. So, if per
capita income were to be used as the
measure of development, Haryana will
be considered the most developed
and Bihar the least developed state of
the three.