[Assam] The State of the States - Sentnel Editorial

[Ram Sarangapani]

  At the risk of ruffling the feathers of some netters, I have to rely on
the good 'ole Sentinel to bring us some of the best editorial and analyses.
:-)

I did know that India too had these 'State of the State and State of Union'
stuff. Apparently they do and this is good.

Couple of things struck me (have highlighted those). One is about the
control states in India have these days and their destiny (some netters have
always told us otherwise :-)).
Agriculture and the affect of insurgency seem to have held back Assam - more
than anything else. Even with these, the state has done OK.

--Ram
**
**
*A Message to States
*The 2006 State of the States report prepared by
India Today has Punjab at the top, followed by Kerala and Himachal Pradesh,
and Bihar at the bottom — of the 20 big States in India. Big States are
those that have an area greater than 35,000 sq km and population more than 5
million. Of the remaining 10 States that are small States on the basis of
the above calculation, Pondicherry is at the top, followed by Goa and Delhi,
and Meghalaya is at the bottom. One would do well to note that of all the
eight northeastern States (including Sikkim), Asom is the only big State and
its rank is 16, above Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar, in that
order — not something that Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi can take pride in. The
order of the other northeastern States is: Sikkim (4), Mizoram (5), Nagaland
(6), Manipur (7), Arunachal Pradesh (8), Tripura (9) and Meghalaya (10). As
for the parameters that decided the state of the States, they were
meticulously chosen by economists Bibek Debroy and Lavneesh Bhandari as law
and order, agriculture, primary education, primary health, infrastructure,
consumer market, investment environment, and budget and prosperity. The most
interesting thing about this year's India Today State of the States report
is that a ''fastest mover'' State has been identified against each of the
eight parameters as above, which gives a measure of the State's growth
trajectory and potential. According to India Today, a ''fastest mover is the
State where the rate of improvement on overall performance between 2003 and
2006 was greater than the rate of improvement between 1991 and 2003.'' By
this definition, in general, the fastest mover has been identified as Madhya
Pradesh whose rank is otherwise 14. It goes without saying that the
fastest-mover concept is reflective of how well a State has geared up to
overtake the States that are at the top of the list, but that are showing
signs of stagnancy.
*The case of Asom is a telling narrative in itself. In agriculture, the
State is at the bottom — the report comments that ''despite the mighty
Brahmaputra, less than 6% of cropped area in Assam is irrigated'', which is
''lowest among all States''.* Readers may recall that this newspaper has
already reported about nearly 75 per cent of the irrigation schemes being
defunct in the State that has faced a drought-like situation this year. As
for the other two vital parameters — *infrastructure and investment
environment — that go a long way in assessing as to whether a State is
potentially powerful and working on its potential that is attuned to the
needs of reform economics, Asom's rank is a dismal 17*. Even Jharkhand (13)
beats Asom in investment environment. *One does not know whether the
political leaders in Asom understand: that these are times ''when States are
in a position to shape their own destiny'' and ''more than ever in the past,
* *they have a fair chance to make the most of it'', as India Today comments
*. Or is it that Asom is an exception? *Having said this, what cannot be
lost on us is that it is militancy that has contributed to the present mess
in one way or the other.* Let it, then, be said that the plausibility of a
sustainable growth trajectory in the State depends on the *rate of undoing
of the industry that 'insurgency' has turned out to be.* At the same time,
the political leadership in the State ought to realize that these are times
when one has to perform to deliver governance, and that there is absolutely
no alternative to such kind of governance. The fact remains that a State
like Asom cannot go on affording a rank of 16.
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