The Impact of Social Infrastructure and Physical Infrastructure on Economic Growth in Punjab, India
Against the backdrop of socio-economic crisis and declining role of the state in infrastructure development, this article evaluates the inter-district disparities in social infrastructure (SI) and physical infrastructure (PI), and consequently attempts to examine the impact of SI and PI on economic growth in Punjab at two points in time, that is, 2004–2005 and 2016–2017. For this purpose, a district level social infrastructure index (SII) and a district level physical infrastructure index (PII) encapsulating 12 and 10 indicators, respectively, have been computed employing principal component analysis. The findings of the study revealed that PI acts as a pivotal catalyst to accelerate economic growth, whereas SI does not demonstrate any significant association with economic growth in Punjab. Furthermore, it is observed that pervasive inter-district disparities exist in SI and PI development and the majority of the districts depict a gloomy picture of infrastructure development in Punjab.