Mukherjee and Chakraborty (2007) noted that during early 1990s
(1993-96), on an average middle income states (e.g. - Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Karnataka and West Bengal) were growing faster than others. However,
during late 1990s (1997-2000), except for low income States (e.g. -
Kerala, Haryana, Bihar and Orissa), growth rate slowed down, indicating
a stagnation. On the other hand, during early 2000s (2000-2004), the
difference in economic growth rate across the States having different
level of income has gone down and barring few exceptions (Rajasthan
and West Bengal) both for low and medium income States the growth
rate generally slowed down as compared to the late 1990s level.
3.4 Data
In order to obtain State level secondary information on
environment and natural resources from published government reports
and other databases for both the time periods selected in our analysis,
i.e., Period A (1990-96) and Period B (1997-2004), the sample is restricted
only to 14 major Indian States, namely - Andhra Pradesh (AP), Bihar
(BH), Gujarat (GJ), Haryana (HR), Karnataka (KR), Kerala (KL), Madhya
Pradesh (MP), Maharashtra (MH), Orissa (OR), Punjab (PB), Rajasthan
(RJ), Tamil Nadu (TN), Uttar Pradesh (UP) and West Bengal (WB). Now
the data available for various environmental indicators in India are not
always necessarily compatible with the time period selected by us, given
the varying date and frequency of their publication. To resolve this issue,
we have chosen only those indicators with at least two observations,
where one of these observations is located within the boundary of the
two sample periods. The selected indicators have then been normalized
18
using appropriate measures of size / scale of the States - geographical
area, population and GSDP at current prices.
Here we need to distinguish between two key concepts, namely
- endowment effect and efficiency in natural resource management
effect. The depletion and degradation of natural resources and
occurrence of environmental pollution is chiefly concerned with
environmental management. On the other hand, the initial endowments
of natural resources (forests, land and water) are determined by
geographical, climatic and ecological factors. Quite understandably,
the former is comparatively more influenced by human activities. By
calculating the change in the natural resource position with respect to
a base year we can isolate the two effects.15 The current study focuses
on the environmental management efficiency effect as well as the size
effect of the States.
The data sources for our analysis on EQ and descriptions of
the actual data series used to construct each group are listed in
Appendix 2 and 3 respectively. A total of 63 variables have been
selected for the analysis, placed under eight broad categories, which
are summarized in Table 2.
15 For instance, a higher index for Orissa as compared to Punjab by merely ranking
the forest resources of the two States (by taking the percentage of geographical
area under forests land) comes from the fact that Punjab possess very little of the
selected variable to begin with. Therefore the analysis does not imply that forest
conservation practices of the former are in any way better than the same of the
latter. Ranking the change in their forest area (as a percentage of geographical
area) during any two periods would be the ideal exercise for comparing their forest
conservation practices.