Trend and pattern of tribal consumption vis-à-vis non-tribal consumption in West Bengal during the reform periods

Abstract

The Indian economy has recently grown at historically unprecedented rates and now one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Real GDP per head grew at 5.4% a year from 2000 to 2005. Real per capita consumption has also grown rapidly, at 3.9% a year from 2000 to 2005. It is widely recognized that with the development, inequality in the society graduallyrises up to a point and then decreases.  Kuznet (1955) has suggested that income inequality might be expected to follow inverse U shape curve in which inequality first rising with industrialization then declining. Increased inequality is the result of forces such as technological change, over which no control, or the globalization of world trade, which people believe despite historical evidence to the country, to be irreversible (Atkinson, 1999). But it is also very true and realistic that too much extreme inequality must definitely be avoided as it is unacceptable to most.