The poor management of river and rainwater has resulted in the periodic occurrence of floods in the northern districts and drought in the southern districts of Bihar. This phenomenon has led to unbalanced growth across the regions in terms of both social and agricultural development of the state. The successful implementation of three consecutive 'agricultural roadmaps' (2008 to 12, 2012 to 17, and 2017 to 22) and two consecutive 'Saat Nischay' schemes (Saat Nischay Part-I started in 2015 and ongoing Saat Nischay Part-II started in 2021) has tried to establish the regional balance to some extent. In this study, we aim to analyse the inter-district disparities in terms of social and agricultural development by computing the composite index and identifying the backward regions through the principal component analysis method. For this, we have used the secondary data on selected seven-seven indicators of both the dimensions of social and agricultural development taken from the Department of Economics and Statistics, Government of Bihar and State Level Banker's Committee, Bihar for the year 2019-20. The results from the analysis show that there is a high degree of social and agricultural disparities across the regions such as Patna, Muzaffarpur, and Nalanda are the very highly developed districts while Kaimur, Jamui, and Banka are the very low-developed districts in terms of social development. Similarly, Begusarai, Sheohar, and Madhepura are very highly developed districts while Kaimur, Rohtas, and, Jamui are very low-developed districts in terms of agricultural development. The result of Spearman's rank correlation test (.331) also states that both 'social' and 'agricultural' development show a medium level of significant positive association which means a higher level of social development may induce a higher level of agricultural development. Thus, to establish balanced growth across the regions for ensuring societal harmony the government should frame and interlink the social and agricultural development policies together.

South Asian countries have witnessed a low-level equilibrium trap due to high population and low per capita income growth. The implementation of the intensive agricultural program in the decade of 1960s has brought some level of economic prosperity, poverty reduction, and food security but has also caused regional disparities in terms of economic, agricultural, and environmental outcomes. The Sustainable Development Goals 10 and 15 jointly advocate the adoption of 'sustainable agricultural practices' to reduce intra and inter-country inequalities. It does not only provide healthy food but also promotes racial equity and environmental justice. Therefore, to measure the level of agri-environmental sustainability among South Asian countries, the secondary data on 11 agri-environmental indicators related to the four dimensions of 'agriculture & and environment' were extracted from the World Bank Database. By using them, the 'Composite Index of Agri-environmental Sustainability' has been calculated with the help of the 'Normalized Inverse Euclidean Distance' method suggested by Sharma (2008) at two-time points i.e. 2010 and 2020. The results indicate that there was the presence of a high level of agri-environmental disparity across the regions. It also reveals that between the years 2010 and 2020, agri-environmental sustainability has decreased in Afghanistan and Maldives and has increased in the remaining six countries. Despite some increase in the index value, the intensity of agri-environmental sustainability was below average in both periods. The significant Spearman's rank correlation rho (.738) also describes that the selected countries have shown relatively low progress in terms of agri-environmental sustainability as their respective ranks are highly correlated between both periods of study. Therefore, the government of South Asian countries should effectively implement sustainable agricultural policies to ensure balanced and inclusive growth in the region.