BJP-led states perform better than Cong ones

Congress general Rahul Gandhi's view that Bihar has not properly utilised central government funds for the social sector has been confirmed by a government report, but the same does not apply for Narendra Modi-led Gujarat.

Updated on: Oct 29, 2010, 01:00:48 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Congress general Rahul Gandhi's view that Bihar has not properly utilised central government funds for the social sector has been confirmed by a government report, but the same does not apply for Narendra Modi-led Gujarat.

Bihar has earned almost the lowest rank in performance of the central government's oldest social sector scheme — 20- point programme — for April to July 2010 whereas Gujarat has bagged the top position, jumping three positions from the last ranking in 2009.

In a performance appraisal of the 20-point programme, the ministry of programme implementation and statistics said Bihar had scored less than 30% in the performance index whereas Gujarat, a BJP-ruled state, has scored over 90%.

The report comes at the time Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is being complimented for achieving a high growth rate of 11% and widening the ambit of social sector schemes.

The report outlines the failure of the Bihar government in providing adequate rural electrification and ration to below poverty line families. It also said that the progress on construction of rural roads has not been up to the mark.

The index is based on monthly monitoring of 19 parameters for schemes such as rural electrification, rural housing, public distribution system, afforestation, women and child welfare.

The Congress did not react, saying it has not seen the report, while the BJP termed the report a certificate of good governance in the NDA-ruled states.

Programme implementation minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said the performance indicator was an impetus for poor performing states to do better. "There should be monitoring at district and block level also to reflect the correct development picture," he said.

Besides Gujarat, other non-Congress states such as Karnataka, Jharkhand, MP and Punjab are in the list of 10 best-performing states.

While most of the northeastern states have got poor ranking, Congress-ruled Mahrashtra, Rajasthan and Delhi are in the same basket. Among the BJP-ruled states that have not done well are Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand.

The programme has been restructured thrice since its inception in 1975, primarily because of introduction of new schemes and programmes by the government. The first revision was held in 1982 and the second in 1986.

The third and last revision took place in 2006.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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