Plus&Minus

"A weekly column: Plus&Minus will be published in Hindustan Times, Jaipur Live. This will speak to the ordinary reader on contemporary economic issues in a simple format".

Rajasthan rated high in law and order, NREGA
Hindustan Times Jaipur Live, October 20, 2009                             <<Archive>>

By Pradeep S Mehta

Rajasthan continued to remain somewhere at the 12th position in the overall ranking, and around the same in other indicators as well. However, in terms of annualized growth rate, we were 19th at 6.52 percent as against the national growth rate of 7.8 percent, while Gujarat was at the top with 10.22 percent.

If we look at the law and order situation, Rajasthan was rated high, closely followed by Himachal while Punjab was far behind. In primary education and primary health care, Rajasthan was among the worst five in the whole country. However, we did well in implementing NREGA, where employment was provided to 26.31 lakh households and had the highest average of 75.8 days to beneficiaries.

All this data analyses is good for our administrators to see where they stand and what they need to do. For Rajasthan clearly we have an agenda to improve primary health care and primary education as these do have a definite co-relation with reducing poverty.

Being an agricultural state, we also need to hark what Bharat Singh has said above. We need to improve our agricultural research framework so that we can generate better seeds which can produce under adverse climatic conditions, as I wrote in this column on 17th August, 2009 (http://pradeepsmehta.com/Articles-PlusMinus-Emulating_Gujarat_in_rural_and_farm_development.htm). Ultimately, as has been shown by many studies we need to invest much more in the rural road network which can help easy movement of people and goods from and to rural areas. Prosperity is bound to trickle down.

CONCLUDED