Uncovering Regional Disparities in Infrastructural Development of Uttar Pradesh: An Exploratory Factor Analysis

Abstract

In developmental studies, the infrastructural sector is considered as an important component of overall economic development. The infrastructural growth in the state of Uttar Pradesh is undoubtedly critical since independence. The main focus of this paper is to uncover the principal factors or dimensions of infrastructural characteristics and to quantify the level of infrastructural development of Uttar Pradesh into five clusters having different grade of development using Exploratory Factor Analysis & K-means Cluster Analysis. The analysis has been carried out by taking into account various infrastructural indicators for the time period of two years from 2018 to 2019. The results of the present analysis led to the identification of the five factors of infrastructural characteristics, and the classification of all the seventy-five districts of Uttar Pradesh into five regions with different degree of infrastructural development. The ‘infrastructural regions’ uncovered through this procedure allow a much more useful characterization of Uttar Pradesh for the policy making purpose. The same technique may be applied to the whole country and other countries as well.