Social reforms in Kerala & Bengal way behind UP, MP & R’sthan

NEW DELHI: Left-ruled states Kerala and West Bengal are far behind UP, Rajasthan and Orissa in implementing social reform schemes as envisaged under `the 20-point programme’, initiated during the Indira Gandhi regime. The programme includes eradication of poverty, food security, provision of potable water and health for all.

Progressive states like Kerala and prosperous states like Punjab lagged behind the so-called backward states like MP, Rajasthan and UP. While Kerala ranked 21 ,West Bengal fared even worse at 23rd rank.


The report, which has evaluated the state’s performance for April-July 2006, has adjudged Uttranchal, UP and Andhra Pradesh as the best performing states. These states get the first three ranks having completed over 75% of the projects identified under the programme.

The poor performance has now caught the attention of the Centre that has organised a meeting of senior state officials in the Capital on Wednesday to discuss various issues, including better implementation of the restructured programme now named Twenty-Point Programme 2006 (TPP-2006).

“Monitoring of the re-structured programme will start from April 1, 2007. It will take place at four levels — block, district, state governments and finally at the Centre. While individual ministries at the Centre would be responsible for monitoring the individual schemes, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) would monitor the programme in totality,” an official in MoSPI said.