With the Lok Sabha elections are scheduled for 2014, the UPA government at the Centre is in the process of compiling success stories on flagship programmes in the states and as per the preliminary report the non-UPA states have outperformed the rest of their counterparts on many counts.
Bihar, Gujarat, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, the non-UPA-ruled states, have been ranked first in performance in sectors like education, livelihood, food security, environment, good governance etc.
Highlighting the achievements in education sector, an internal note of the government, a copy of which is with this newspaper, revealed that in Bihar the dropout rate of girl student in high schools has decreased and comparatively less number of early marriages are seen. Next to Bihar comes Chhttisgarh, where 1,156 residential school and 1,851 hostels for Scheduled Tribe students are there and the enrolment of girls in scheduled area has increased by 200 per cent.
Similarly, in case of providing livelihood Chhattisgarh has toped the list of states with a targeted skill augmentation in 12.5 million workers. The state is also all set to develop 3,000 educational institutions into skill development centres. Congress ruled Uttrakh-and, however, comes second in the list with a skill development scheme laun-ched in 2005. The issue of food security about which the UPA at the Centre talked more than anyone else, Karnataka has done well with a scheme called “Bhoochetana”, a special agriculture development programme, which is being implemented since 2009.
On the issue of environment Orissa and West Bengal out performed rest of their counterparts. “Pani Panchayat” is a very successful initiative by the Orissa government and similarly “Jal Dharo-Jal Bharo” is doing wonders in water conservation in West Bengal. Under the head “Good Governance Practices through IT facility”, though Andhra Pradesh, a Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh has topped the list, but the BJP-ruled Gujarat is not far way. If “Mee Seva” is doing wonders for people in Andhra Pradesh, then “e-gram” is also working well.