<p>Inter-state disparity among the states is one of the major issues in Indian economy, specially, the Special Category States, which are backward in terms of various development indicators within the regions. The present study develops four composite development indices, viz. economic, social, industrial, and infrastructure-wellbeing index, to measure economic performance of the states during 1990–1991 to 2019–2020. Further, the ordered-logit approach has been used to analyze the ordered development across the states, which is consistent and robust to the method of factor determining through ranking transition of the development indices. The study observed significant inter-state variation as well as large-scale ranking transitions in terms of all four composite indices. It is clear that the economically backward Special Category States are mostly affected by low ranking in EWI, IPI, and IDI. The results of ordered panel-logistic estimates suggest that the coefficient of the state’s dummy is negative but insignificant.</p>