Social Sector Expenditure and India’s Development:An Empirical Assessment During 2001-02 to 2015-16

Issues relating to linkages of social sector with economic growth have been in much attention by researchers in recent times. Sustained and equitable economic growth is a major objective of government expenditure policy and as such, it is obligatory of any government to improve the quality of life of people which is mainly carried out by incurring public expenditure in areas such as health, education, and other social services.The term social sector is often used to refer to Education, Health and Nutrition sectors.In theory there appears to be a positive relationship between social sector expenditure and economic growth, which the paper aims to examine using empirical data. The present research paper evaluates the effectiveness of social sector expenditure policy’ from an economic development perspective by undertaking a regression analysis of Economic Development (GDP) as dependent variable and social sector expenditure components are independent variables. The time period consider for this study is span of 15 years from 2001-02 to 2015-16 and the secondary data obtained from RBI database. From the results, it can be found that public expenditure on Education, Sports, Art and Culture; Medical and Public Health; Water Supply and Sanitation; Housing; Urban Development; Nutrition and Rural Development is found a positive impact on economic development while public expenditure on Social Security and Family Welfare is observed negative impact on economic growth during the study period.