1.1 THE PROBLEM The process of development has been continuously taking place in the world. But it is noticed that the development is not equalized

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1 1 1.1 THE PROBLEM The process of development has been continuously taking place in the world. But it is noticed that the development is not equalized all over. It varies from country to country, region to region and society to society. "Regional disparities have continued attracting the attention at least since Rudyard wrote that" East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet", as the statement is equally relevant for economic differences (Gulati, 1999). Some people are enjoying all kinds of luxuries whereas many are struggling for their livelihood. The problem of regional imbalance, which is the result of regional disparities, is not only the problem in the developing countries but also in the developed countries of the world. The cultural, social, political, economic disparities have resulted into the imbalanced development mostly in the developing countries of the world. Balanced regional development is surely not only an economic issue but also a political and social necessity (Lahiri, 1972). The different regions of a nation are generally endowed with different climatic conditions and natural resources. These coupled with historical and sociological differences and differences in political set-up and conditions lead to different rates of regional economic growth resulting often inconsiderable and increasing differences in the levels of lining of the people of the different regions of a nation (Nair, 1986). The areas which are rich in resources or are favourably placed, grow at comparatively faster rate than other areas. Thus, with every stage of development, gap between resourceful and the less resourceful areas goes on winding (Anuradha and Rao, 1995).

2 2 The existence of regional disparities is almost a common and global phenomenon. Both developed and under developed countries are gripped with the problem of regional disparities and imbalances. Even the richest country of the world, the U.S.A., has the problem of imbalanced regional development. Small and rich countries like England, France, Italy etc. are also confronted with this problem. The socialist countries like Russia and China are also not free from the problem of regional inequality (Koropeckyi, 1972). The imbalanced development of a region is not only spatial but it is temporal too. The modern, scientific and technical attitude of a man has been keeping the region dynamic. But in some cases, the natural disasters and the distractive acts of man have been forcing the region into an un-uniform. Hence "economic development has not been uniformly distributed either over space or time" (Paul, 1973) In a developing country like India there is greater regional imbalance. The spatial structure of socio-economic development has been distorted to a greater extent due to deep rooted social, economic, political, historical, natural, and other forces of its spatial organization (Sharma & Kumar, 1993). This has led to the widening the gap between haves and have-nots, within the country and even within the region at micro level. We have highly developed regions on one side and highly backward on the other. The pockets of industrialized, urbanized and agriculturally rich areas have been emerged out but a large rural sector has been remained backward.

3 3 In case of Maharashtra it is truly said that if we include Mumbai in Maharashtra, Maharashtra becomes one of the developed states in India and when we exclude Mumbai, Maharashtra stands as one of the backward states of India. It clearly points out the greater regional imbalance within the state. The regional imbalance in rural areas is not only confined to the economic disparity but to the complex natural, social, cultural and political disparities. This had led to the serious problems in rural areas like poverty, unemployment, migration, social unrest, poor health and illiteracy and quality education. The study of regional imbalances is interdisciplinary. The economists, sociologist, political scientists have also realised this problem and they are trying to study it with their own approach. The geographers, who are very much interested and expert in spatial analysis, have their own approach in standing the regional disparities and imbalances. It is in this direction an attempt has been made here to study the socio-economic imbalance at micro level in Kolhapur district of south Maharashtra. The Kolhapur district of southern Maharashtra has been considered as one of the developed districts of India. But surprisingly there is a greater regional imbalance in its socioeconomic development within the district. 1.2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY All the development plans are designed for the welfare of the people. The economic planning is based on careful regional analysis. It is imperative that the planning efforts should be to prepare need-based and region-specific plans rather than growth rate and target oriented plans (Rao 1993). In this context, the

4 4 present study will provide the levels of social and economic development of the tahsils in the district that could be very useful for regional planners for further necessary actions. The micro regions or tahsils vary in their social and economic developments. This study may provide the basis for the further requirement of such regions to have a balanced development of the district. The study also suggests the regional development strategies to promote all round development of the district. 1.3 THE CONCEPT OF REGION The concept of region has a special importance in geography. A region is a geographical and socio-economic entity delimited as a government administrative unit or a combination of such units. The term region can be applied to different areas within the same country or different countries or groups of countries or even the world (Teriba, and Kayode, 1971). Region is often interchangeably used with 'area'. Generally region and area are used in the same meaning but the two terms are not same. Area is more general term, it used in any disciplines but region is more scientific term. The regions are thus spatial kinds of areas. An 'area' is always associated with at least four properties, scale, location, content and boundary. It may or may not possess homogeneity or uniformity as to content and organization. It is the presence of any one or both of these additional properties which makes 'area' a region. Regions are those types of areas which posses not only scale, location, content and territorial boundaries but also either homogeneity or organisation or element of both (Ginsburg, 1959).

5 5 The term region and area are also used interchangeably with space. Space may be visible or invisible; it is not to be bounded. Therefore space by definition involves a three dimensional boundless void (singh, 1990). In Geography, regions can be broadly divided in to physical characteristics, human impact characteristics and the environment. 1.4 THE CONCEPT OF REGIONAL IMBALANCES The regional imbalance is a broad term in which the regional disparities and regional inequalities consists of. These terms, in general are used in the same meaning but in fact these are not identical and having distinctions among them. The region is associated with different characteristics of its qualities and quantities which vary from region to region. These differences among areas are known as regional disparities. Regional disparities mean differentiation in the values, qualities or quantities of certain items of different regions. These are determined by the application of quantitative methods, however, these are identified on the basis of classes, ranges or categories. While regional inequalities are measured mathematically. If mathematically even there are least difference in different regions is known as regional inequalities and when disparities misbalance the state of development over different regions is known as regional imbalances" (Sharma and Kumar, 1993). A deliberate outcome of a particular development policy giving us the two kinds of regional imbalances - i) Natural imbalance, and ii) Created imbalance (Mandal, 1987).The natural imbalances depend upon differences in the natural resources, topography, climatic conditions, rainfall etc. The natural

6 6 imbalances so appeared go on increasing during the process of development. The 'created' imbalance is related to the human effort. The created imbalances may also emerge from the ignorance of policy makers, deliberate development policies and inaccurate plans. The social structure and development, political pressures, psychological condition and qualities of the people are also creating the regional imbalance. 1.5 CONCEPT OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT Development is a process of changing and aiming the socioeconomic transformation of a traditional society into a modern society. According to premi (1986), 'Development can be considered in a narrow sense as an instrument of raising the per capita income or it may mean the provision of a better quality of life for each and every person of the society.' Rural development is not only agricultural but it is transformation as a whole. Rural development may be broadly defined as a process aimed at the well being of people, particularly those living outside the urbanized areas through forward and backward linkage between the rural and urban sectors (Rukhsana, 2009). The people of rural areas involve farmers, agricultural labourers, tenants and land less people. Rural development has also been defined as a strategy to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people, that is, the rural poor including small and marginal farmers, tenants and the land less (Mehta, 1984). First attempt for rural development in India was made in 1885 with an ultimate objective of bringing immediate relief and

7 7 development of rural areas in Baroda. After independence, in September 1948, first and the fore most 'pilot project' was started in an area of 64 villages scattered in the vicinity of Mahewa, located at a distance of about 15 km from the headquarter of Etawah district (U.P.) Realizing the backwardness of rural people, many rural development programmes have been started by the Government for the eradication of rural poverty and to improve their living conditions. The first step in this direction was launching of community development in October It aimed at bringing around socio economic development of the village with the willing cooperation and participations of the villages. In October 1953 National Extension Services was started to provide the essential basic staff and funds to start the development work essentially on the basis of self help. To help in participation of local people in decision making process, the Panchayat Raj system was introduced in 1959, Intensive Agricultural District Programmes was launched in 1961 and in 1964 Intensive area programme (IAP) was started. Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) was visualized in The main objective of IRDP is to raise the standard of living of the poorest families. In brief rural development implies economic betterment of people as well as greater social transformation (Rukhsana, 2009). 1.6 STUDY REGION The region under the study is the Kolhapur district, situated in the extreme southern part of Maharashtra state. It lies between ' North and ' North latitude and ' East and ' East longitude (fig. 1.1). The district is enclosed by Sangli

8 8 district in the north, Belgaum district of Karnataka state in the south and east and in the west it is bounded by Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg district. The sahyadri ranges to the west and Varna river to the north form the natural boundaries of the district. The district occupies a total area of 7,685 sq. kms. and population of 35, 23,162 persons as per census Out of the total population of the district, 24, 72,809 (70.2 percent) are residing in rural areas and remaining 10, 50,353 (29.8 Percent) in urban areas. The area of the district accounts for 2.5 percent of the total area of the state and the population of the district constitutes 3.6 percent of the population of the state. (District census Handbook: Kolhapur, 2001). Warna, Panchganga, Dudhganga, Vedganga, Hiranyakeshi, Ghatprabha rivers and their tributaries drain the district, which are easterly flowing and originated from Western Ghats in the west. The district consists of 12 tahasils, 1217 villages, 16 towns and 2 cities. Since the study is confined to the rural area, the towns and cities in the district are excluded from the study region (Appendix-I). 1.7 CHOICE OF THE STUDY REGION Kolhapur district is one of the most developed districts of Maharashtra. The per capita income of Kolhapur district is highest in India at district level. But the researcher has observed that the development is not balanced. In the different sectors like agriculture, economic, social, infrastructural, transport, communication etc; the rural development is not uniform, but there is remarkable disparity within the rural areas of Kolhapur district. On this background the researcher was very much interested to

9 9 study this kind of imbalance. Therefore, we have chosen this particular topic for research. Secondly, the researcher is well familiar with Kolhapur district which become advantages in many ways to study this region. This also will save the money and time. 1.8 OBJECTIVES The broad objective of the present study is to reveal regional imbalances in rural development of the study region. This objective will be viewed in the light of the following specific objectives. 1. To study the physical environment of the study region as the basis for the development. 2. To identify the spatial structure of demographic characteristics and to overview the socio-economic status of the study region. 3. To analyse the temporal trends of regional imbalances in rural development in the study region. 4. To find out the extent of regional imbalances in the levels of socio-economic development in the study region. 5. To examine the relationship among different components responsible for the imbalances in rural development of the study region. 6. To suggest meaningful and viable suggestions in order to plan for balanced regional development of study region.

10 DATA BASE The work is mainly based on secondary sources of data. Such data is collected from the District and State Census Reports and Statistical Abstracts, District Gazetteers for the years and and some other published and unpublished records. Some data are collected from different government offices i.e. department of forest, agriculture, revenue, education, health, irrigation, social welfare, ground-water survey of the district. The collected data is processed by employing different statistical and cartographic techniques METHODOLOGY In the present study an attempt has been made to analyse the regional imbalances amongst the tahsils in Kolhapur district. The regional imbalances are studied in three sectors i.e. Economic, Social and Infrastructural sector. The towns and cities are excluded from the study to measure the real picture of rural development (Appendix I). In the present study most suitable development indicators are selected. First of all, the values of indicators have been calculated for the tahsils in the district. To find out the regional development the method of Composite Index of Development is used. Composite Index of Development The method for constructing Composite Index of development by summing up the ranks of various indicators has earlier been quite popular among the researchers. The ranking method has two major drawbacks. Firstly, it does not consider the magnitude of difference in values of indicators; secondly, in this method all the indicators are given equal

11 weights (Gulati, 1999). 11 Since the indicators of development in the present study are not equally important, we have assigned different weights to different indicators by using the method of Proportional Standardized Mean" (Srivastava, 1983), the weight assigned to one indicator is measured by following formula. Where, W = x σ W = Weight of one particular indicator X = The average of the series of one particular indicator. σ = The standard deviation of same series. After calculating of weight of any indicator, we have calculated the composite Index of Development by using the following formula. C.I. = x 1 x1 σ x σ x x σ x2 σ + 2 x σ + x σ σ x x x 4 x4 σ C.I. = x 1 w w w x 2 2 w + 2 w + 3 x 3 OR w Composite Index of Development has been calculated for all sectors of indicators. On the basis of Composite Index, the indices have also been calculated by taking whole region as 100 (for average composite index) by following formula. Composite Index of any unit Indices = x 100 Average of Composite Index

12 12 On the basis of Indices the tahsils has been categorized as, developed tashils, fairly developed tahsils, poorly developed tashils and very poorly developed tahsils. The present study also measures the regional imbalance using following techniques and tools. Techniques Used in the Present Study Norm - Region and Region In the present study the concepts norm-region and region have been adopted. Norm - Region Kolhapur District as a whole has been taken as norm region. Region The administrative tahsils falling within a district were assumed as region mainly because of the availability of data at this level and nonavailability of data at levels lower than tahsil. Indicators In the present study 27 relative indicators in the Economic, Social and infrastructural sectors have been selected to measure the imbalances in the rural development of Kolhapur district. List of Indicators for Measuring Imbalance A) Choosing Indicators 1. Geographical area 2. Net area sown 3. Number of agricultural (cultivators & Labourers) workers 4. Net area irrigated 5. Consumption of fertilizer 6. Number of agricultural credit-societies 7. Total population

13 13 8. Number of electric & oil operated irrigation pumps 9. Number of tractors 10. Area under cash crops 11. Number of regulated markets 12. Number of villages 13. Number of registered working factories 14. Number of industrial workers 15. Number of workers engaged in secondary and tertiary activities 16. Total number of workers 17. Total number of literate population 18. Number of female population 19. Number of female literate population 20. Total number of male population 21. Number of male literate population 22. Total number of Scheduled Cast population 23. Total number of Scheduled Cast literate population 24. Total number of Scheduled Tribe population 25. Total number of Scheduled Tribe literate population 26. Number of primary schools 27. Number of secondary schools 28. Number of female workers 29. Total number of female workers engaged in secondary and tertiary activities 30. Number of national & co-operative banks 31. Number of primary health centers and sub centers 32. Number of hospitals and dispensaries 33. Number of post offices 34. Number of telephone offices 35. Number of villages linked with pacca roads B) Relative Indicator Economic Sector 1. Net area sown / Geographical area

14 14 2. Net area sown / Number of agricultural workers 3. Net area irrigated / Net area sown 4. Consumption of fertilizer / Net area sown 5. Number of agricultural credit-societies / Total population 6. Number of electric & oil operated irrigation pumps / Net area irrigated 7. Number of tractors / Net area sown 8. Area under cash crops / Net area sown 9. Number of regulated markets / Geographical area 10. Number of registered working factories / Number of industrial workers 11. Number of workers engaged in secondary and tertiary activities / Total number of workers 12. Number of agricultural workers / Total number of workers 13. Total number of workers / Total population Social Sector 14. Literate population / Total population (excluding 0-6 age group) 15. Female literate population / Female population (excluding 0-6 age group) 16. Male literate population / Male population (excluding 0-6 age group) 17. Scheduled Cast literate population / Scheduled Cast population 18. Scheduled Tribe literate population / Scheduled Tribe literate population 19. Number of primary schools / Total population 20. Number of secondary schools / Total population 21. Number of female workers engaged in secondary and tertiary activities / Number of female workers Infrastructural Sector 22. Number of National & Co-operative Banks/ Total population 23. Number of primary health centers and sub centers / Total population 24. Number of hospitals and dispensaries / Total population

15 Number of post offices / Geographical area 26. Number of telephone offices / Geographical area 27. Number of villages linked with pacca roads / Number of villages Tools of Analysis To measure the regional imbalances following tools of analysis have been used in the present study. 1. Balance ratio. 2. Index of Regional Imbalance (Maharashtra Economic Development Council, 1977). These techniques are simple and lucid and provide sufficient clue to the extent of regional imbalances (Mandal, 1987). Values of all these tools are non negative. The ideal value of balance ratio is unity and its opposite extreme value is zero. The technique of the balance ratio is supposed to be indicating the relative development status following the system given below. Value of Balance Ratio (y) Status of Relative Development 0.0 y < 0.6 Poor 0.6 y < 0.9 Moderate 0.9 y < 1.5 Balanced 1.5 and above High Formula for measuring the Imbalance: i) Choosing the non-identical indicator i : a) For the norm region X si = N sj D sj Where, X = s = Relative indicator Norm region

16 16 N sj D sj = is the jth numerator indicator of the norm region = is the jth denominator indicator of the norm region b) For the region Where, X ri = N rj D rj X = r N rj D rj Relative indicator = Region = is the jth numerator indicator of the region = is the jth denominator indicator of the region ii) Where, Calculation of Balance Ratio with respect to relative indicator: a) Norm region Y sj = X sj = 1 X sj Y = s = X = Balance ratio Norm region Relative indicator b) Region Y ri = X ri X sj Where, Y = Balance ratio r = Region X = Relative indicator s = Norm region

17 17 iii) Index of Regional Imbalance R r = n i= ( Yri 1) / n Where, R = Index of regional imbalance r = Region Y = Balance ratio n = Number of indicators (The details of it are given at the appropriate text) The results obtained through different analyses have been interpreted accordingly REVIEW OF LITERATURE Various empirical studies have been conducted to estimate the extent and nature of regional disparities in social and economic development in India and abroad. The important and recent empirical studies have been reviewed here. The regional development studies have been undertaken mostly by the economist, regional scientists and geographers. The volume of Lahari (1972) contains scholarly contribution, covering the balanced regional development concepts, strategy and case studies of imbalances. Rao (1973) studied the regional disparities in India, selecting six indicators of the three sectors. Pal (1975) has studied the Regional disparities in the level of development in India. Sharma (1975) attempted to analyse the spatial disparities in Rajasthan. Karan & Bladen (1975) has studied the interregional disparities of income in India. In this study he discussed the relationship between regional disparities and level of national

18 18 development. Sampath (1977) have analysed inter-state inequalities in income in India between 1951 and 1977 with the help of weighted & un-weighted coefficients of variations. The micro - regional variations in economic development of Rajasthan have been studied by Kulkarni (1977). Shri. Prakash (1977) attempted to examine regional inequalities and economic development with special reference to infrastructural facilities in India. Misra & Chopra (1978) has studied dimensions of inter - districts disparities in level of Development in Madhya pradesh for Shri. Prakash & Rajan (1979) have examined regional inequalities of rural development in Madhya Pradesh. Ramana & Sharma (1979) has studied disparities in development in Telangana region, the purpose of his study is to classify the 110 community development blocks of Telangana region and to identify the priority services to be provided in each block for reducing inter block disparities in development. Chattopadyay & Mishra (1979) has studied inter-regional allocation of resources towards balanced development of Bihar. Datta (1980) attempted to analyse the regional variations in the levels of development of Madhya Pradesh, selecting various indicators. Bahadur & Ahmed (1981) examined the inequalities in Higher Education in India. Dube & Misra (1981) has studied level of education in Madhya Pradesh. The level of education and development in the state has been evaluated by using composite scores from a set of carefully selected variables. The volume of Nair (1981) contains scholarly contributions, covering the agricultural, industrial, social, employment, educational disparities and development issues in India. Chattopadhyay (1982) studied the regional variations of priority

19 19 sectors for economic development of Kerala, selecting 19 variables by using correlation matrix technique. Iyenger and Sudarshan (1982) examined the intra-state disparities. They analysed inter district variations in development of Andra Pradesh for the period and Karnataka for the period on the basis of twenty one important indicators of development. Shrivastava (1983) attempted to examine the regional disparities in agricultural development in Madhya Pradesh for year by selecting eight indicators of development with the help of proportional standardized mean method. Suar (1984) studied the regional disparities in economic development in Orissa for the year 1977, selecting twenty indicators of development by using Principal Component Analysis. Kakkar (1985) studied the regional imbalances and rural development programmes in Uttar Pradesh. Sharma, Sing & Dhillon (1985) attempted to examine the regional disparities in levels of diversification in rural economy in India. Reddy (1985) analysed the inter-state regional disparities in educational development in India for the year with nine indicators by weighted method. Gupta (1985) examined the industrial disparities in seventeen major states in India during on the basis of important four indicators of industrial development. Mandal (1987) attempted to measure the extent of regional imbalances in the economy of Bihar and examine the factors responsible them. Banerjee (1987) attempted to examine the regional imbalances in agricultural development in Uttar Pradesh, and she also studied (1992) disparities in development of socio-economic infrastructure in rural areas of selected district of Uttar Pradesh. Joshi (1987) studied the relationship between economic development and the

20 20 level of infrastructure at the district level in Uttar Pradesh with help of regression analysis for the period Siddiqui (1987) has studied the regional variation of agricultural development in the north Bihar Plain. Ramchandra and Raghu (1987) studied the regional disparities in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, selecting forty-five variables of six sectors for the period of by using the of Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis. Reddy (1988) attempted to examine the regional disparities in the development of small scale industries in Andhra Pradesh. The study examined the inter and intra regional disparities for the period in the development of industrial sector by computing composite Index of industrial development on the basis of important indicators. Shastri (1988) studied regional disparities in economic development of Rajasthan period of twenty-three years ( ) by applying techniques of composite index of development, coefficient of variation, range and ranking analysis. He selected forty indicators for seven sectors. Singh (1990) attempted to measure the extent of regional agricultural development and examined the factors responsible for them. Her study intends to evolve a suitable development strategy for rapid and balanced agricultural development. Kantawala and Rao (1992) analysed inter state disparities in sectoral development in India from to selecting twenty- six indicators of agricultural, industrial and services sector. Rao T. N.A. (1993) evaluated the balanced regional development in Karnataka. He covers all the major geographic and economic components of development with thirty- nine indicators of development. The volume of Tripathi and Tiwari (1993) contains scholarly contributions covering various social and

21 21 economic aspects of development.jain (1993) examined district wise regional disparities of agricultural development in Madhya Pradesh. In his attempt he made spatial pattern of agricultural development in Madhya Pradesh. Panse and Dubey (1993) studied the dynamics of regional disparities in levels of socio-economic development in Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh for the years 1981 and 1990 by using the Kendall's coefficient technique. The volume of Tripathi and Tiwari (1993) contains scholarly contributions covering various social and economic aspects of development. They selected important twenty indicators of rural development. R. Chand and Mehra (1994) have studied regional imbalances in the levels of agricultural development and Nutrition in Kumaun. Iqbal and Khan (1995) attempted the regional imbalances in food crop production in Jammu and Kashmir. Anuradha and Rao (1995) studied inter-state disparities in the level of industrial development for the period to Kaur Dhian and Ghuman (1995) studed inter-district disparities in Panjab for the implication of planning. Debi (1996) examined the extent of inter and intra-district inequalities in education in rural Orisa in terms of literacy rates at three points Spehr's disparity index. Murgaiah (1997) studied the micro level study of economic disparities in Karnataka. Shukla and Dhagat (1999) studied the disparities of economic development in India with help of factor analysis approach. Shaban and Bhole (1999) attempted to measure the levels of development in various district and regions in Maharashtra for the benchmark years , and with help of 62 indicators and using principle component analysis and distance statistics technique. Gulati (1999) made a

22 22 commendable and systematic investigation of regional development and policies in India. He studied both problem oriented and solution-oriented analysis of the dimensions of interstate disparities in India in the primary, secondary, tertiary sectors and overall economic development of the country by using the factor analysis and discriminate analysis techniques. Bhatt and Bhatt (2000) attempted the micro level analysis of spatial inequality in Garhwal Himalaya, using twenty-eight indicators. The volume of Goswami (2000) contains papers on various dimensions of regional disparities in India authorised by some of leading economists, social scientists and journalists. Toufique (2001) has studied the regional imbalances in food crop production of Uttar Pradesh. Mallikarjun (2002) has attempted to measure regional disparities at sub regional levels of Andhra Pradesh. He used the three alternate methods for the constructions of composite index of development were used considering fifty developmental indicators of nine sectors. Rao (2004) analysed the inter-state disparities in the development of tertiary sector in India. Reddy, Krishnakumari and Rao (2004) made an attempt to analyse the regional disparities in industrialization in Andhra Pradesh for the year 1997, selected nine indices of development. Pawar and Ingale (2006) examined the regional disparities in levels of social development in south plateau region of Maharashtra for the year 2001, selecting nineteen indicators of development. Patil (2007) has studied the regional disparities in levels of development in Maharashtra for year 1991, in the sector of demography, irrigation, electricity, resource distribution, industrial and transportation. Hangaragi (2007) analysed the spatial

23 23 pattern of sectoral development in Bagalkot district of Karnataka state for the year THE DESIGN OF THE RESEARCH WORK The entire study is organized into seven chapters. The first chapter deals with the introduction including the problem, significance of study, the concept of region, concept of regional imbalance, concept of rural development, study region, objectives, data base, methodology, choice of the study region, review of literature and the design of the research work. The second chapter deals with the physical environment of study region focusing attention mainly on the physiography, relief, climate, rainfall, drainage, soils, flora, fauna, and minerals. The demographic characteristics comprising population growth, distribution of population, density of population, sex ratio, age structure and distribution of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe population have been studied in third chapter. The forth chapter presents a discussion on the socioeconomic status of the Kolhapur district. The social status deals with the social movement in the study region, family structure and literacy while the economic status have deals with land-use pattern, cropping pattern, irrigation, use of chemical fertilizer, land holding, industry, occupational pattern and infrastructural facilities like, transportation, post offices, banking, electrification, educational institutions and health. The fifth chapter seeks to investigate the levels of rural development in the study region in the economic, social, infrastructural sectors and overall development.

24 24 The sixth chapter seeks to investigate the regional (tahsilwise) imbalances in rural development in Kolhapur district. Indicator-wise imbalance at tahsil level has been analyzed with the help of balance ratio and inter-tahsil imbalances in its spatiotemporal perspectives have been analyzed with the help of index of regional imbalance. The sector-wise imbalance in each tahsil for both periods of time has also been analysed. The last chapter deals with the findings immerging from the study and the suggestion for planning for balanced regional development in the study region.

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