Pattern of Public Expenditure Among the Selected Major Indian States

Public expenditure is a crucial scal policy to improve the quality of the nation's technical, physical, and human capital. It has been continuously increasing over time in almost every country of the world. India has a federal structure where the objectives of equitable distribution of income, resources, and wealth are attained with the mutual efforts of the Union and State governments. It is pertinent to know the changing pattern and growth rate of the State government expenditures which helps to attain Sustainable Development Goals. The study uses time-series data to analyse the pattern of the components and sub-components of the State expenditures for the fourteen major general category States of India from 1990-91 to 2020-21. For comprehensive understanding, the sub-nationals are categorised into two panels, i.e., high and low-income States. The results showed that development expenditure has a prominent share in States' total expenditure, compared to non-development and other expenditures. However, the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of non-development expenditure is more than that of development expenditure, irrespective of the income level. It is also concluded that the share and CAGR of social services expenditure is more than the economic services expenditure.