Almost all social indicators of the state show that the state stands on 13th or 14th position among the sixteen major States. Bihar and in some cases Orissa, are the only two states which lag behind U.P. in terms of social development indicators like medical facilities, teacher-pupil ratio in primary schools, birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate, literacy, per capita income, electrification of villages, per capita power consumption etc. Uttar Pradesh is often seen as a case study of development in a region of India that currently lag behind other parts of the country in terms of a number of important aspects of well being and social progress. Their region consists of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. There are important differences between these four states. But the cause of social backwardness in these four different States, never the less, appear to have much in common and recent comparative research have pointed to many similarities in the social, cultural and even political makeup of these states which have contributed to their backwardness.
