Despite an accentuation of consumption inequality in recent years in Kerala, development in the social sector has been more or less equitable across districts. Kerala

This paper analyses the intra-state disparities in government expenditure in six states, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, based on the actual treasury data on government expenditure made in the social sectors of education, health and supply of drinking water, captured from the databases of the accountants general of these states.

While inequality in per capita state domestic product in India tends to increase, state-level indicators of human development show decreasing dispersion for the obvious reason that the standard outcome indicators of health or education have natural upper limits. Does it mean that instead of worrying about disparity in social indicators we should rather focus on disparity in per capita income?