Foundation Day of MP
I have spent far many more years in MP than in my home state UP. I came to Madhya Pradesh on 19th December,1975. Late Shyama Charan Shukla was the chief minister of the state. At that time the bureaucrats, the police and the politicians were very different from what they are at present. Almost every department at higher level functioned with integrity. The system of transfers and postings on the recommendations of politicians was almost unknown and the secretariat and police headquarters enjoyed much greater autonomy. I leave it to my dear readers to think about the present situation.
Madhya Pradesh has celebrated its foundation day yesterday. MP has completed 66 years of its existence. On 1st November, 1956 a new State of MP came into being by merger of Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh,Bhopal state and part of Central Province. This created geographically the largest state of India. It was said at that time that after the reorganisation of the states, whatever was left in the centre of India became Madhya Pradesh. With great difficulty the administrative uniformity was brought into the governance. On 1st November,2000 the eastern part of the state called Chhattisgarh was separated and a more coherent administrative unit of MP was left behind.
Instead of going into administrative and political matters, I will touch here the economic situation of my state. MP has shown some remarkable achievements in the agriculture sector. It has also registered industrial growth in certain clusters. In spite of all these efforts, MP is a backward state in India and it requires more efforts to bring it to the average of national development. Human Development Index ( HDI ) has been created to get a total picture of the development of any area and the people living there. The concept of HDI was evolved, surprisingly, by a Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq with the help of some others. Before commenting further let us understand the concept of HDI.
HDI is a composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries or states for human development. In simple words it means the higher HDI indicates more life expectancy, better education and economically more prosperous people. In 2019 the state of Madhya Pradesh was placed at 33rd rank among 36 states and UTs of India. The other three states below MP were Jharkhand,Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in that order. This gives the picture of backwardness of MP in the national context. It is for the leaders and the people of Madhya Pradesh to ponder over the future course of action and act accordingly irrespective of political, social and other differences.
