Smaller states make for better governance
Smaller states make for better governance
A smaller state is easier to manage as funds, schemes and growth dividend can be reached out to the grassroots’ levels effectively. If you look at the issue of taking power to people, a smaller state is a boon.
A smaller state doesn't always prosper and has it own share of bane as well. We always tend to think and confuse a smaller state with greater local participation and thus greater accountability in the delivery of services which may or may not be the case always. When we bifurcate a state, establishment of administration for a new state is a costlier affair and the administrative cost is also high. In a larger state the admin cost is well absorbed over larger gains. A smaller state is seen to be vulnerable politically that stems growth. The local, racial, cultural or religional issues can easily creep up and plunge upswing growth of the state into turmoil.
So we should weigh both administrative necessity and administrative convenience before taking a measure for having a smaller state.
Karnataka is not a smaller state but it is quite good in taking funds, functions and functionaries to the grassroots level. Jharkhand is a state that was carved out from Bihar, has not been able to settle itself politically and has not been able to make its mark as a developed state. But small state like Chhattisgarh seems to be doing better than MP and Uttarakhand better than UP.
So clearly size of state can't guarantee development and smaller state are not always an economic dynamo of the country.
Discussion
- RE: Smaller states make for better governance -Deepa Kaushik (04/18/14)
- Governance has hardly anything to do with the area of the state. The geographic area of the state could increase the probability of the related concerns, but it is not necessary that the smaller states don’t have serious issue to manage.
The governance of the state needs to have a satisfaction among the citizens of the state. More influential the leadership more could be the extent of satisfaction. It is quite understandable that a zero per cent error can only be on papers, the government that claims to have efficient governance is the one which has tried to hear to the public demand and tried to work on the same. Smaller states with an aggressive and furious crowd cannot be tagged to be efficient.
The larger states might have more districts and for the government, they face a wide mass to cover, being controlled by a number of subordinates as the mediators. The challenge here stays in the fact that more the number of mid-persons between the public and the government more are the chance for the concern to lose its importance and seriousness.
State could be smaller or larger in its area, the government should try to have a direct approach to the public from time-to-time to provide an appropriate solution to their concern.
- RE: Smaller states make for better governance -vishwa (03/13/14)
- Smaller states can have a more responsive administration; regional differences in India are significant leading to greater homogeneity in smaller units.for instance, when Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh saw reorganisation, all three together did much better in the decade after the changes than before. This did coincide with the Green Revolution, making for a big boost to agricultural productivity in this region, yet it can be argued that at the same time, larger Uttar Pradesh did not see such overwhelming success compared to the smaller states. It is possible that the local administration was more responsive to getting the best out of the new technology.
