Article Title: Opinion | The geography of industrial growth in a federal polity

Article Summary

The article at issue is a meditation on the changing geographical-industrial landscape in India, and the factors that combine to effect this change. The author states that there are several factors present. Six states, as found by the author, hog a substantial part of Indian industry – Gujarat, undivided AP, UP, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. This is due to “the economies of agglomeration”. This is also due to other factors like the historical and political developments in the mentioned states. As several factors combine to give a particular geographical location an advantage, driving up competitiveness and competence there, the same factors make them over-competitive over time and cause corporations to flee the place, making other spots more lucrative. Nothing productive has been done to counter this fleeing by the governments of states like Bengal, and detrimental measures have been taken instead. After the results of the 2019 Central elections are declared, the new government at the Centre may make or break uniformly geographically distributed trade in India through its policies – the author hopes measures are taken to ensure the geographical diversity exists, and industrial growth is not made to clog the soils of one particular region only.