Recently in the wake of Telangana issue, once again the issue of dividing the various states has got the ground in the political sphere of our country. A demand of dividing one of the largest state in the country i.e. UP has gained ground to such an extent that its echo can be listened even in state's assembly. A long pending demand of dividing UP in 3 or more part has once again came into prominence.
Now, it is pertinent here to think how useful is to divide any state and create a new one. It is often said that smaller states has more prospect to grow than larger one and this statement can even be supported by citing the example of Punjab,Haryana etc. Perhaps because of this or only because of this belief Assam was ruined and divided into various part keeping in mind that it would also helping creating the engine of growth .But needless to say what happened to our North eastern states, not only they could not ripe the fruits of development but also the demands of further division of states have risen periodically. So dividing larger states into smaller one is not the ultimate solution.
Further, i will ask here a question, which state in India has the potential to be on the top? Mh, GJ or southern states... any guess...i will bet for Jharkhand....it is the most prosperous stete in the country in the term of mineral wealth. Also , it is endowed with natural beauty which only enhances its prospect of becoming prosperous. Bihar was divided and Jharkhand was born in the winter of 2000 with the hope that this would usher an era of development but needless to say what is the present condition of Jharkhand. So even the availability of resources should not be the taken as assurance for the development of state
In India, most of the states are dependent on central aid for their survival as their own income is not high enough to feed their own population. So by just dividing states and creating new one will only aggravate the burden of central government. Moreover the financial assistance required for the setting up the administrative machinery will only do the worse. Further it is the centre which has to bear the additional cost of erratic election caused by irresponsible state politicians. So any further division of any state will thus create only additional burden on the centre. Then what is the solution?
Before looking into the possible solution, just takes a case study. What is the difference between PB, HR and UP,BH . An ordinary person will say that first league of state is more prosperous than later but I will say second league of state has the potential to make 100s of PB and HR out of them. But why are they lagging? Because they are large or they don’t have resources? The eastern UP and northern Bihar has one of the most fertile land not only in India but also in the world but still they are lagging. But what is the reason? The answer is the psycho-social condition of these states.. The reader will be amazed to know that more than 70% of land holding belongs to the elite of respected areas which in no case would be more than 10% of population of related areas. Land being the only resources and agriculture being the single most important occupation of rural folks, this type of inequitable land distribution will only create the havoc in the states and such demand of dividing the state is inevitable. Similar is the case of many states in India.
So instead of dividing the state on the name of development we should look into the matter more deeply and instead of trying the solutions that is cliche we should go for more novel solutions. We should not feed the unsatisfied politicians to make their own career and work for better recourse management and upliftment of socio- economic condition of our citizens
