Punjab is best state, Bihar the worst: Survey

[Guest mehtab]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_932278,0008.htm

Punjab is best state, Bihar the worst: Survey

Indo-Asian News Service

New Delhi, August 6

Punjab has been ranked as India's best performing state on the basis of its achievements in a wide spectrum of sectors such as agriculture, consumer market and investment scenario, said a survey on Friday.

Punjab bagged the top rank in a list of 20 big states of India evaluated on 49 parameters, said the survey conducted by economists Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari for India Today weekly magazine.

The second annual The State of the States study report unveiled by President APJ Abdul Kalam covered 30 states and five union territories, divided into big and small states category.

In the big states category, while Punjab bagged the top slot, Bihar was ranked as the worst performing for the second consecutive year.

In the small states category, Pondicherry emerged as the best Indian state, followed by Delhi, Mizoram and Goa. Meghalaya figured at the end of the list of 10 small states.

Among five union territories, while Chandigarh was adjudged number one, Dadra and Nagar Haveli featured at the bottom of the list.

The states were ranked on the basis of their performance in eight broad categories — agriculture, consumer market, education, law and order, health, infrastructure, investment environment and budget and prosperity.

In agriculture, Punjab ranked as the best performing state while Jharkhand was the worst in the

big states category. Pondicherry emerged as number one in the small states group.

Punjab also ranked the top in consumer market, infrastructure, budget and prosperity and investment scenario.

"The signs of affluence (in Punjab) are all over -- luxury cars, glitzy malls, express flyovers, upmarket motels, five-star marriage palaces and resorts," said the India Today report.

"Punjab's relative prosperity has much to do with the head start it gained with the much-trumpeted green revolution," it added.

According to the survey, Kerala is the best performing state among all big Indian states in terms of law and order, health and education.

In the small states category, Delhi has been ranked as the best state on parameters of consumer market, infrastructure and budget and prosperity.

The survey said laggards like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar had been more efficient in distributing poverty than in generating prosperity.

"Both Bihar and Uttar Pradesh could do with a higher level of inequality if that is the only way they can come out of poverty," it said.

Bihar has been ranked as the worst performing state in six out of eight categories -- consumer market, health, education, infrastructure, investment scenario and budget and prosperity.

In the big states category, Punjab is followed by Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttaranchal, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and West Bengal.

Other states listed as per their rankings are Assam, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar.

In the small states category, Pondicherry is followed by Delhi, Mizoram, Goa, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, and Meghalaya.

In the union territories group, the best performing Chandigarh is followed by Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

[stopsingh]

Good on Punjab :TH:

But please remember the following :T:

The signs of affluence (in Punjab) are all over -- luxury cars, glitzy malls, express flyovers, upmarket motels, five-star marriage palaces and resorts," said the India Today report.

"Punjab's relative prosperity has much to do with the head start it gained with the much-trumpeted green revolution," it added.

According to the survey, Kerala is the best performing state among all big Indian states in terms of law and order, health and education.

Education is very important and from my personal observations I find it sad that Punjab is not doing very well on that score. Although our youth are amongst the most hard working in the world (once they go overseas) they are not getting as far as the youths of southern states when it comes to jobs that require intellect. Lots of doctors have arrived in the UK from India. Most of these are from southern states. The nearest I have come to finding anyone of Punjabi stock was a nurse from Gurgaon in Haryana working at a UK hospital.

Also Bihar is bottom of the pile and guess what, lots of Biharis are now settled in Punjab I hope they do not start to drag the standards down.

[Guest mehtab]

I heard a few years back that Punjab University, Chandigarh (or was it Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh) is second best in India and 5th best in Asia. Plus I also heard that literacy rate in Chandigarh was 100% some years back (not sure).

[stopsingh]

I heard a few years back that Punjab University, Chandigarh (or was it Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh) is second best in India and 5th best in Asia. Plus I also heard that literacy rate in Chandigarh was 100% some years back (not sure).

That maybe so but the situatio in the rest of Punjab is very different. Also as the article states one of the reasons for being top of the survey is that Punjab had a head start.

This needs to be maintained. With dwindling real farm incomes it is important that our youth get the right education and skill sets to market their skills in both india and abroad.

[S1ngh]

Of course PUNJAB is the best state !!! End of Debate

[japmans]

an important fact that not many people know is the impact of the Green Revolution in Punjab.... that really screwed over the farmers... i'll try to explain it as simply as possible, but it shows that ia ctually learnt something in my world issues class...

so during the 20's, the mexicans were realizing that they were running out of food and fastttt... so this one scientist (who actually ended up winning the Nobel Peace Prize...which is ridiculous, as you'll see if youi keep reading), Norman Borlaug teamed with the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, as well as the Indian Government to initiate a process that all the scientists around the world were saying was flawless at the time...this is "The Green Revolution"

Essentially, it was the concentrated and dedicated use of powerful pesticides on crops to reduce crop loss via insects making it their meals, and powerful fertilizers to inrease crop loads, and sometimes, even the number of harvests in a year.

the best way to describe the positives of the situation is this:

the G.R finally started in 1940..uhh..or maybe 1960... <admin-profanity filter activated>, i knew i'd forget something..., in India.. Punjab was the "target"... i use the word target, because Punjab really did lose alot via the green revolution.

the positives are this:

in the first few years of the G.R, farmers made such an incredible amount of money.. pesticides were affordable, as were fertilizers, exporting costs were stable, and punjab farmers were richer than ever before...

Statistics show that worold hunger actually decreased to the tune of roughly 20-30 million people (which is "insignificant" becaus

e every day, more than 900 million people across the world are either in a state of famine, or throughly undernourished), as the G.R was taking place in Punjab.

Mexico's hunger levels decreased incredibly, and many thank yous were yelled across the oceans so that the world could understand mexico's gratitude to india's institution of the G.R

then the fertilizer companies realized that they could profit no matter what... so up went the fertilizer and pesticide prices, to prices that were ridiculous... the stat i learnt was that the cost to buy pesticide and fertilizer went up 800%.... then, the cost to uphold and maintain all that new equipment and tractor systems that the green revolution required... costs skyrocketed and all of a sudden, the chemicals alone were putting farmers in a state of deficit... reveunes from selling the crops ewre not equalling the costs to buy fert and pesti....

Secondly, we hafta understand that the G.R in Punjab was a very close equivalent to the Baby Boom in the western world... the G.R meant that farms were bigger and more volumous with crops... thus more people were needed for their hands.... thus families grew.... sadly, the largest growth in family size came in the first few years of the G.R phenomenon.... thye timing was 'great'.... afmilies grew, and then debt increased

Thirdly, the farming land became brutal... see, the over graining and pesticide and fertilizer use was forcing the soil to lose more nutrients at a time than it could produce... soil eventually turned to sand... everything eroded... and alot of land in punjab, even up till now, is rendered useless from the overplantation that was required, in order for the G.R to have its full effect.

Farmers lost money.. they would take out loans from, essentially, loan sharks... they had to sell previously HUGE sums of l

and, for paltry money in order to make up for the debts and to buy the new chemicals... no doubt, Punjab benefited from the G.R.. but it equally was disintegrated.... there's very very few methods to cure the salination of soil (which is another way that punjab's soil became useless), and there's even fewer methods that are cheap enough for the already poor farmers.

peace prize?!?! peace prize my ***.