A Study on District-wise Agricultural Development in West Bengal: Measuring the Agricultural Development

This study aimed at viewing regional disparity within the state of West Bengal, India, over a long span. The study attempted to examine the pattern of relative changes in agricultural development across districts between two sub?periods. ?Agricultural Development Index? has been constructed in different methods. Ranking Method and Weighted Composite Indexing Method have been used to construct the index besides Principal Component Analysis. The study tries to locate the prime factors associated with the level of agricultural development. Conceiving the multidimensional agricultural development space, we have limited our measurements on development as well as disparity to twenty important indicators. Suggestions on some policy measures for minimizing regional disparity in West Bengal have been advocated in the study.