UP scores low in plan panel report

A year before assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Planning Commission has ranked the state poorly on performance of 12 major flagship schemes of the Central government.

Updated on: Jun 16, 2011, 22:50:19 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A year before assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Planning Commission has ranked the state poorly on performance of 12 major flagship schemes of the Central government.

The new analysis is likely to provide Congress ammunition against the Mayawati government on UP for not been able to utilize the Central government funds effectively.

The new ranking, which is the part of annual state plan report for 2011-12, finds UP at the bottom of the table on most social sector schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA), mid-day meal, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Kishan Vikas Yojana. The report will be discussed with UP government officials on Monday.

In MGNREGA, the world’s biggest job security scheme, UP ranks 29th on women participation in the scheme. The Central government has told the states that half of the jobs to be given under the scheme should be women. But, in UP only 15.28 % of the total workforce were women in last financial year.

The UP had also been found wanting on providing mid-day meal to all school children in the state with just over 80 % getting daily lunch. As per the scheme, every child in the school till upper primary level should get free lunch.

In case of implementing the largely successful Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, the plan panel had found the state wanting in filling up vacant posts of teachers and in providing free text books to children. Of the sanctioned posts, only 90 % were filled and 95 % target of distribution of text books were met.

For implementing National Rural Health Mission, the state has been ranked 15 with the panel finding state record on infant and maternal mortality rate higher than that of India for 2011. The infant mortality rate was 63 as against 50 for 1,000 live births in India and 440 as compared to 254 for India.

Similarly performance on integrated child development scheme (ICDS) has not been good with around half of the children below six years of age being undernourished.

But, one sector where UP has done well is construction and upgradation of rural roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana with the ranking among top five states of the country.

Points denied

MGNREGA: Only 15.28% of the total workforce were women last financial year

Sarva Siksha Abhiyan: Of the sanctioned posts of teachers, only 90% were filled and 95% target of distribution of text books were met

National Rural Health Mission: Ranked 15 in the nation in infant and maternal mortality rate

Mid-day Meal: Only 80% school children getting daily lunch.

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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