Revision as of 22:21, 3 August 2013

The reorganization of Indian states

How the number of states grew to 29 over the years (+ seven union territories= 36).

Akshaya Mukul TNN

The Times of India 2013/07/31

1948, 1949

On April 1, 1949, when the Nehru-Sardar Patel-Pattabhi Sitaramayya (JVP) Committee report was made public it endorsed what the earlier S K Dar Commission had said in December 1948. Arguing for reorganization of states, Dar said new states shouldn’t be on linguistic basis.

The Cogress decided in 1948 to re-examine formation of states and formed the JVP Committee. It opposed the linguistic basis, but said: “If public sentiment is overwhelming, we as democrats have to submit to it..” It said the time’s not ripe for creating more states, but added a case can be made for AP’s Telugu-speaking people. This fanned a movement among Telugu-speaking people of Madras state — the highlight being Potti Sriramulu’s death after a 56-day fast on December 15, 1952. AP was born on 1953. The creation of AP opened the floodgates.

1953: The States Reorganization Commission (SRC)

Bowing to pressure, Nehru in 1953 formed the States Reorganization Commission (SRC). In September 1955, it recommended the abolition of A, B, C, D category states and said there should be 16 states and 3 UTs. It recommended formation of Hyderabad state. Bulk of its recommendations was accepted leading to the passage of State Reorganisation Act, 1956, and creation of 14 states and five UTs.

In May 1956, Puducherry became a UT after the French handover.

The 1960s

In 1961, Goa was liberated. Gujarat and Maharashtra were born in 1960. The government capitulated to the Sikh homeland demand in Punjab. The status of Chandigarh—if it would be the joint capital — wasn’t settled initially, later the two states agreed to share the city.

Nagaland was carved out of Assam in 1963. In 1966 Meghalaya was carved out of the same state.

The 1970s

In 1971, Himachal, Manipur and Tripura were born. Also UTs of Sikkim and Arunachal were created. Sikkim became a full state in 1975. The Jharkhand movement was brewing, so was the demand for separation of hill regions from UP. Tribal areas of MP wanted a separate identity.

2000-13

BJP created Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh on November 1, 2000. It took another 13 years for Telangana to be born.

How the number of states increased over the years

See the four charts below.

How the number of states increased over the years

How the number of states increased over the years

How the number of states increased over the years

How the number of states increased over the years

When states split into two

Who prospers, mother or daughter?

When states split into two, who prospers, mother or daughter?

Political Orientation, Not Size, Decides A State’s Performance

Subodh Varma TIMES INSIGHT GROUP

The Times of India 2013/08/01

Almost 57 years after it was carved out by merging Teluguspeaking areas and cutting out Marathi and Kannada speaking areas, Andhra Pradesh is now on the carving board again — the Telangana region will now be partitioned off into a new state, induced by a long-standing agitation, but delivered by the political expediency of the Congres. Whatever be the complex electoral implications of this, the real question is whether people in the two new truncated states benefit from this?

Twelve years ago, three mega-states had seen a similar division. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh were split and Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh created. How have these pairs of ‘mother-daughter’ states fared in these years?

TOI analysed several indicators of economic and social development and found that the mother-daughter states present a mixed record.

Annual growth of the gross state domestic product (GSDP), which is a measure of the way the state’s economy is faring, indicates that Bihar is doing better than Jharkhand, MP and Chhatisgarh are doing the same and tiny Uttarakhand is way ahead of ‘mother’ state UP.

All these states are largely dependent on agriculture, and hence, the vagaries of monsoon. So there are huge ups and downs. But the stress on mining in Jharkhand hasn’t propelled it much further. The hill state of Uttarakhand has surged ahead because of rapid industrialization in its plains areas. It has also reaped the rather unsustainable harvest of tourism and hydel power to notch up a phenomenal annual growth rate of 16% in the last eight years.

But Jharkhand races way ahead of Bihar in foodgrain production, clocking an annual growth of 10% even as Bihar languished at a measly 2% between 2001-02 and 2011-12. To be fair, Bihar faced many more challenges, like droughts and floods, and Jharkhand was starting from a very low base.

MP too had double the growth in food grain production than its daughter state Chhattisgarh. Incredibly, Uttar Pradesh and its tiny offspring Uttarakhand both had the same 1% growth in foodgrain output. So again, a mixed bag of results.

What about state governments’ attention towards the people? Have smaller states had better social outcomes? Again we found no clear answer.

When states split into two, who prospers, mother or daughter?

When states split into two, who prospers, mother or daughter?

When states split into two, who prospers, mother or daughter?

The infant mortality rate (IMR) in these states has declined across the board over the past decade. Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand showed a 31-point decrease while MP showed a 29-point dip. UP’s IMR declined by 23 points but it was still high at 60. All states were converging, although the larger states more slowly than the smaller ones.

Reflecting both, government inaction as also deeply entrenched social prejudices, child sex ratio continued to decline in all six states whether small or big. Worryingly, son preference and female infanticide seem to be creeping into tribal communities in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh too, which were hitherto not so discriminatory against the girl child.

Literacy rates have jumped up in two big states — UP and Bihar — but also in the daughter state of Jharkhand. The MP-Chhatisgarh duo has seen only a small increase in literacy in the past decade.

The two big states of Bihar and UP are severely lagging in school infrastructure — they have just 6 and 7 primary school sections per 1,000 children. Compare that to their daughter states — Jharkhand has 13 and Uttarakhand 17. The MP-Chhatisgarh duo is fairly even on this count. On the other crucial link in the education system — teachers — the bigger states are clear laggards. All three bigger states have higher pupil teacher ratios than their smaller progeny.

Although all these states suffer from chronic unemployment, the implementation of the central government’s job guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) is doing better in the two smaller states of Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, compared to their ‘mother’ states. But in Bihar, the average days of employment given is more than its ‘daughter’ Jharkhand.

So, the performance of a state is not so much determined by its size as by the political will and orientation of its government. Which way will Telangana and the reduced Andhra Pradesh go?

Are smaller states more efficient?

See the chart below

Are smaller states more efficient?

2013: Other regions that want to be upgraded into states

Birth of Telangana lights other fires for statehood

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

The Times of India 2013/08/01

New Delhi: A day after the announcement of Telangana, towns in coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalseema shut down while fireworks lit up the Hyderabad sky in celebrations on Wednesday. But the proposed 29th state also ignited calls for statehood in Darjeeling in West Bengal, among the Karbis and Bodos in Assam and in Uttar Pradesh where former CM Mayawati called for implementation of her ‘four-state’ formula.

Faced with a renewed demand for Gorkhaland, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee ruled out any bifurcation of the state as her government headed for a showdown with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) which has called an indefinite strike from Saturday.

Several ethnic groups in Assam have swung into action. Violence rocked Karbi Anglong district in which one student was killed and 15 injured after police fired at a group of protesters in Diphu. The administration clamped indefinite curfew and called for army to maintain law and order. The All Bodo Students’ Union (Absu) has announced a rail blockade on August 2 and a 60-hour state bandh from August 5. Absu also plans a 1000-hour stir, saying it would be a ‘do-or-die’ movement.

Welcoming the Telangana announcement, BSP chief Mayawati reiterated her demand for division of UP into four states — Bundelkhand, Poorvanchal, Paschimanchal and Avadh Pradesh — for which her government had got a resolution passed in the assembly in 2011.