Ch 4The Economy of Maharashtra — Class 11 Economics, concept-first.

This is the one genuinely state-specific unit in the Maharashtra HSC (MSBSHSE) Std XI Economics course.

For administration, Maharashtra is organised into a hierarchy of units, and knowing this structure helps a student place the state's economic geography.

The economy of Maharashtra has a distinctive character that the Std XI Economics syllabus expects a student to describe and explain.

A state's income is measured by its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) — the money value of all final goods and services produced within the state in a year.

Agriculture contributes only a modest share of Maharashtra's income, but it remains the livelihood of a very large part of the population, so its problems are central to the state's development.

If one institution symbolises Maharashtra's rural economy, it is the co-operative — a voluntary, member-owned organisation run on the principle of "one member, one vote" for the mutual economic benefi…

Industry is the foundation of Maharashtra's reputation as India's economic powerhouse. The state is the country's leading industrial and manufacturing state and its number-one destination for domestic…

The tertiary (services) sector — trade, transport, communication, banking and finance, real estate, IT, tourism, entertainment, education, health and public administration — is the largest contributor…

The performance of every sector rests on the quality of a state's infrastructure and on the development of its people — and here Maharashtra generally ranks among the better-placed Indian states, thou…

Every strength described so far coexists with the state's single greatest development problem: regional imbalance — the wide and persistent gap in income, industry, irrigation, infrastructure and huma…