Leaving a few failures aside, India has made noticeable progress in the industrial field. For example, the total labour force employed in manufacturing rose from 51.96 lakh in 1951 to 63.81 lakh in 1975-76 and 10.22 million in 1995-96. The number of factories grew from 13,426 in 1964 to 71,705 in 1975-76 and 1, 34,571 in 1995-96. The fixed capital in these factories rose from Rs. 133,648 crore in 1990-91 to Rs.3, 48,468 crore in 1995-96. Although the rate of industrial development in terms of number of factories, employment and fixed capital is slow but consistent.
According to the state wise analysis of the absolute figure of working capital, employment and number of factories, Maharashtra continues to remain at the top with its share of 16.90 per cent, 13.32 per cent and 14.1 1 percent respectively in 2000-01. Next comes Tamil Nadu followed by Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh in respect of number of factories and workers employed. However in terms of working capital Gujarat occupies second place followed by Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana.
It is heartening that due to the concerted efforts made by the government for industrial development, India became the 10th industrialised country of the world having achieved a remarkable distinction in production of a variety of products and generation of employment. But non-committal and unplanned efforts by the central and state governments did not control the emergence of uneven industrial development in the country.
This bonanza of industrial development is evident from the fact that 8 states, namely Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka. West Bengal and Punjab comprise 74 per cent of factories, 76.24 per cent of workers, 72.25 per cent of invested capital and 66.14 per cent of working capital in India. But in terms of population, these developed states engulf substantially lower figure of 60 per cent spread over only on 46.68 per cent area of the country (in 2000-01).
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The unevenness in industrial development cannot be explained without comparing the number of factories with area and employment and with total population of the states, as these vary in size and population.
When industrial employment per 1000 population is compared, the position of Uttar Pradesh, so called industrially developed state, makes its exclusion from the category of developed states because it has lower value of factory-area ratio, industrial worker-population ratio and composite index of industrial development than (he national average. However, Haryana having very high value claims for the inclusion in this category. Similarly, the computation of the number of factories per 100 sq. km area reflects the ouster of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh from the list of industrially developed states. On the other hand Haryana and Kerala stake their claim for inclusion in the category of developed states.
Hence, in order to bring out the real picture of industrial development, the composite index of industrial development has been computed on the basis of net value added, number of factories per 100 sq. km area and employment per 1,000 populations. Keeping above index in view, 5 states namely Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and 2 union territories (Chandigarh and Delhi) may be placed under industrially developed states of India, while Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh. Haryana and Uttar Pradesh form the category of moderately developed states.
The third category of less developed states includes Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Assam, Manipur, and Meghalaya. Tripura and union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Dadra and Nagar Haveli (Table 18.11 and Figure 18.1). Figure 18.1 also portrays that the northern, central and eastern states and some union territories although lag in industrial development but have adequate potentials for the development. These states attract greater attention of the central government to remove regional disparities in industrial development. This will also avoid regional conflict and dissatisfaction among youths.