States are where the India story is playing out. But it is not playing out uniformly. The prime minister asked Northern state chief ministers on Thursday why when India is on the move should chalta hai be the North’s administrative philosophy. We have focused on the states* that attended the PM’s meeting, crunched state-level, regional and all-India data and done a North-South comparison. The conclusion is clear: The North is starting to become a laggard.

Growth rates

Income in Northern states (measured by state domestic product) grew at an average of 5.4 percent between 2002-05. It was below the all-India average of 6.6 percent and below the Southern average of 6.4 percent.

Investment levels

Currently, the North and South are roughly similarly placed in terms of investment projects under implementation. The numbers are from the Capex database of CMIE. In the North, projects under implementation as of April 2006 are estimated to be worth Rs 2.18 lakh crore, accounting for 28.5 percent of the all-India figure. The figures for the South are Rs 1.17 lakh crore and 28.3 percent, respectively. But looking ahead, the north appears set to lose its advantage. Projects announced in the North by April 2006 were worth Rs 2.45 lakh crore, 21.5 percent of the national total. For the South, the figures are Rs 3.18 lakh crore and 27.9 percent, respectively.

Other indicators

The North lags the South on key indicators like mobile teledensity and per capita power consumption. And of course, there’s the sex ratio, the most telling indicator of the North’s failure in social policy.

• The states that attended the PM’s meeting were Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan. Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh were invited but didn’t attend

editor@expressindia.com