Development takes a backseat

A National Sample Survey Organisation study done for the Unicef paints a dismal picture of traditions hampering development in the country.

Published on: Sep 8, 2006, 03:14:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A National Sample Survey Organisation study done for the Unicef paints a dismal picture of traditions hampering development in the country. Data from 43 districts of 15 states may not be truly representative, but does indicate a pattern of retrograde practices making development go haywire. The study has revealed that the gap between the literate areas and the rest is often too wide.

For instance, it points out that 80 per cent of women in the Tonk district of Rajasthan married before the legal age of 18, while the more literate Dibrugarh district of Assam is a shade better with 13 per cent minors being married.

Less then 10 per cent births take place in health institutions of the backward districts of West Singhbhum of Jharkhand, Dangs in Gujarat and Koraput of Orissa, while the figure is 84 per cent in Tiruvellore district of Tamil Nadu. And in Gaya district of Bihar just five per cent children are immunized, compared to more than 90 per cent in Tumkur district of Karnataka.

The survey states that the biggest cause for worry is the poor awareness about AIDs, which is fast spreading among states with low literacy. In many such districts, the awareness about the mode of transmission is as low as 5 per cent. That when the nation is estimated to have 4.58 million HIV/AIDS patients.

The survey says that in Dholpur district of Rajasthan the awareness about the disease among women in the age group of 15-49 is just 11.2 per cent. The situation is the same in Jhalawar and Alwar districts of Rajasthan and Koraput district of Orissa. It’s only in the relatively more literate state of Andhra’s East Godavari district the awareness among women is as high as 73 per cent. Men in these areas fare a little better than the women in these areas.

Releasing the study report, GK Vasan, Minister of State for Statistics, said the solution is delegating the power of development to Panchayati Raj bodies. “This has been ensured through the 74th Constitution amendment but has not found feet in absence of strong commitment,” he said.

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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