Poor states perform better on economic growth

India's poor non-UPA ruled states have performed much better than richer states on economic parameters whereas most states have failed to achieve the target on social indicators.

Updated on: Aug 12, 2011, 24:24:13 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India's poor non-UPA ruled states have performed much better than richer states on economic parameters whereas most states have failed to achieve the target on social indicators.

In a data presented before the Parliament, the Planning Commission said different states are lagging behind their respective targets for the 11th five year plan and have been advised to make their best efforts towards achieving the target. The 11th five year plan ends in March 2012.

Bihar has been the most outstanding performer in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate with achieving an average of 10% in the first three years of the 11th plan as compared to the target of 7.6%.

Jharkhand was able to achieve 10.6 % growth rate as compared to the target of 9.8%. Orissa, another poor state grew at 9.6% against the target of 8.8%. Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh also did better than the plan panels target.

All the states, which have done well, are non-UPA ruled states.

None of the better off states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal and Karnataka were able to meet the 11th five year plan target for economic growth.

In one area where all the states have faltered is on social indicators such as infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, child malnutrition and drop out rate in elementary education.

Uttarakhand, which recorded highest GDP growth rate of 12.3% for any Indian state, still has maternal mortality rate of 444 per 1,000 live births as against the target of 172. The state still has malnutrition rate of 38 % and 54 % of women in 15 to 49 age group were anemic.

Andhra Pradesh, which grew economically by 7.6%, still has a maternal mortality rate of 154 per 1,000 live births as compared to the target of 65. Similarly, child malnutrition in Andhra remains high as 32.5% as against the envisaged target of 19%. Similar trends are visible across states.

"Providing benefits of economic growth to the deprived is still and issue even though growth has helped in increase in incomes," said a senior Plan Panel official.

The data based on different government studies show that India will not be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in these areas.

The panel admitted that because of slow pace in poverty eradication and hunger, India will not be able to achieve the target of reducing poverty by half in 2015 from 1990 levels. India will miss the target on reducing infant and maternal mortality by one-third to 1990 levels.

Although enrolment of the girl child has increased in schools, the plan said enrolment of all girls in tertiary education as mandated under MDG will not be achieved by 2015. India will, however, achieve target on providing benefits of new technologies to all.

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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