There is no relation between the size of a State and good governance. Bigger States with good governance can fulfill the expectations of the people, while at the same time, smaller States in India have miserably failed to deliver results.
This has been proved in the north-east and the other newly formed States just decades back, said eminent economist and former professor of Gangadhar Meher College Dr Dillip Kumar Panda here.
“Not bigger State, but corruption and casteism are prime hindrances in the path of development,” Dr Panda said in a seminar on ‘small State and good governance’ organised here. Sambalpur Press Club president Prafulla Kumar Dash presided in the seminar. Prof Panda batted for reforms in the ongoing way of governance and change in traditional mindset of the administration for bringing in development to all.
In his illuminating speech, he further said that at the initial stage, enforcement of the law and order becomes the prime necessity for a State. Thereafter comes the point of nation building and development. Hence, in a democratic nation, the Government needs to be more sensitive towards the problems of its citizens. But when it fails to do so, the very purposes gets defeated, he maintained.
He further said that it is always not justified to blame the Government for failure in the administration. “Rather, we should ask ourselves how far we are abiding by the law. But under the present scenario, the servant has become the master and the vice versa,” he rued.
Dr Panda further stated that when elections to the State Assembly and Parliament are drawing close, the Government is thinking to fill up the vacancies in the schools and colleges. But what it was doing during the last few years, he asked.
Bhagabata Prasad Nanda, speaking on the occasion, said that smaller States are rather better means for development of the people and a particular region languishing in neglect for years. Nanda who has been supporting the formation of a separate State for the western region further said that after division of the districts in Odisha, the pace of development has increased.
The logic applies equally to the formation of small States, Nanda opined. Members of various political parties, including BJP, Congress, CPI and former president of the Sambalpur district bar association Dr Pramod Rath spoke. Pres Club secretary Rajaram Padhee gave a preliminary introduction on the topic.