Lkekftd&Vkffkzd Rfkk Tulkaf[;Dh Ifjflfkfr
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
v/;k; & I lkekftd&vkfFkZd rFkk tulkaf[;dh ifjfLFkfr fo'o esa gj NBk O;fDr Hkkjrh; gS vkSj gj NBk Hkkjrh; mÙkj izns'k esa jgrk gSA mÙkj izns'k tks ,d vxz.kh izns'k Fkk vc ,d fiNM+k izns'k cu x;k gSA ;g ,d egku izkphu izns'k gS tks larksa&egkRekvksa dh Hkwfe vkSj dykvksa rFkk okLrqdyk dk dsUnz jgk gSA ;gh ls nks egku Hkkjrh; egkdkO;ksa] jkek;.k vkSj egkHkkjr dh izsj.kk feyh vksj ;gha cq) us viuk igyk mins'k fn;k vkSj fuokZ.k izkIr fd;kA v;ks/;k] iz;kx] okjk.klh vkSj eFkqjk tSls mÙkj izns'k ds dbZ dsUnz f'k{kk ds iz[;kr dsUnz cu x;sA e/;dkyhu ;qx esa mÙkj izns'k eqfLye 'kklu ds v/khu vk x;k vkSj bl izdkj fgUnq vkSj bLykeh laLÑfr;ksa esa ,d u;k la'ys"k.k gqvkA jkekuUn vkSj mlds eqfLye f'k"; dchj Uttar Pradesh is a story of the Heartland turned Hinterland. A land of great antiquity. home to sages and saints, arts and architecture, that inspired two great Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and where Buddha preached his first sermon and attained Nirvana. Several centres in Uttar Pradesh like Ayodhya. Prayag, Varanasi and Mathura became reputed centres of learning. In the medieval period Uttar Pradesh passed under Muslim rule and led the way to new synthesis of Hindu and Islamic cultures. Ramananda and his Muslim disciple Kabir, Tulsidas, Surdas, Amir Khusro, Ghalib, Munshi Prem Chand, Jaya Shanker Prasad, and many other intellectuals contributed to the growth of Hindi, Urdu and other languages. The British combined Agra and Oudh into one province and it came to be known as the United Provinces in 1935. In January 1950 the United Provinces was renamed as Uttar Pradesh. The state of Uttar Pradesh extends from North to Eastern parts of India with an area of 2,38,566 sq. kms. The state occupies the vast gangetic plains, the ganga basin which is the largest in the world. The State is bounded by Uttranchal and Himachal Pradesh in the north, Haryana in the west, Madhya Pradesh in the south and Bihar in the east. Uttar Pradesh has two distinct regions (i) Southern hills and (ii) Gangetic Plain. The State is divided into 70 Districts and 897 Blocks for purposes of administration. There are a total of 98,248 villages where close to 80% of the states population lives. Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state of India with a population of 161.1 million accounting for 16.17% of the total population of the country and every sixth Indian resides in this state. The status of women in Uttar Pradesh has seen many high and low points. This is a land that can boast of women scholars, Matreyi and Gargi, Rishikas and Brahmvadinis of the distant past and recent historical figures of Lakshmi Bai and Begum Hazrat Mahal, who were among the torch bearers of the freedom struggle and equalled and excelled men in valour and courage. After independence, many illustrious women from Uttar Pradesh did the country proud. Sarojini Naidu, the Nightingale of India, was the first woman Governor of U.P. first in India. Sucheta Kriplani was the first woman Chief Minister of U.P. and Indira Gandhi, the first woman Prime Minister of the country hailed from Uttar Pradesh (as did her predecessors Nehru and Shastri). Mahadevi Varma was among the famous Hindi literatures of the country. The role of Begum Hamida Habibullah, a former Member of Parliament, in organizing common women for self employment under SEWA is an ongoing ode to the contribution of such women leaders. However, the overall situation of girls and women in Uttar Pradesh as it obtains today is grim, to say the least bulk of women of U.P. remain illiterate. (1) Current Socio Economic Scenario The state has made substantial progress since the First Five Year Plan but continues to be among the most economically and socially backward, states of the country although the state has tremendous potential and diversity which needs to be tapped. The state has sufficient natural resources, largest skilled, unskilled manpower, largest food grain produce, numerous places for tourism development, sufficient prospects of dairy development and growth of agro based industries (Annual plan 2003). High population growth rates are constraining the development efforts. The state is far from universalization of elementary education and total literacy. Agricultural potential is not fully tapped and about 28% of the net sown area is not irrigated. The infrastructure facilities are inadequate. More than half the villages are not connected by metalled roads. There is low industrialization, limited to certain pockets near the countrys capital and there is insufficient diversification in agriculture. The pressure of population on land is extremely high and the continuing high population growth rate in UP has its adverse implications for development of the state. ● The state has high incidence of poverty and there is widening gap between per capita income of the State and country. The poverty ratio has come down from 57.07% in 1973 to 47.07% in 1983 and to 31.5% in 1999-2000. Though there has been steady and sizeable decline in poverty ratio the absolute number of poor have remained above 500 lakh between during this period. In 1973 there were 535.73 lakh persons below poverty line. In 1999-2000 there were 529.89 lakh poor out of which 412.01 lakh were in rural areas and 117.88 lakh in urban areas. Around one-fourth of Indias poor live in Uttar Pradesh. The poverty ratios are very high in the state compared to many other states like Andhra Pradesh (15.77%), Gujarat (14.07%), Haryana (8.74%), Punjab (6.16%) and Rajasthan (15.28%). Only four states namely Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa have a higher poverty ratio of 36.09%, 42.60%, 37.43% and 47.15% respectively. (National Human Development Report, Planning Commission, GOI, March 2002). ● Per capita income of UP in 2001-02 at Rs. 9749, was much lower than the national per capita income of Rs. 17736. ● Per Capita Consumption Expenditure in 1999-2000 was Rs. 516.99 for UP compared to Rs. 590.98 for India as a whole. Rural per capita consumption expenditure in UP was Rs.466.68 compared to Rs. 486.08 for India as a whole and the urban per capita expenditure was Rs. 690.68 in UP and Rs. 854.96 for India. ● Per capita power consumption of the UP is only half of the national average. In industrial development also, the state is lagging behind. ● The composition of the labour force and its contribution to SDP in U.P. shows that while close to 75% of total workers are in agriculture, their share in State income is 36 %. Manufacturing with 8% share in workers contribute 12.2 percent of the State income in 2000-01. Only 7.75% of total workers in the state are engaged in manufacturing against the all India figure of 10.03%. ● Leaving aside Noida and some of its neighbouring area in the vicinity of Delhi, most of the other parts of this sprawling state are industrially still underdeveloped. The state has a weak industrial base. The share of household industry in the total work force of this sector stood at 31% in 1991 and non- household industry at 69%. ● Agriculture is marked by low productivity and lack of diversification on account of uneconomic and non- viable operational holdings, inadequate and inefficient irrigation network, lack of developed rural infrastructure particularly road, lack of proper and adequate marketing and storage facilities with (2) little contribution from agro processing units. The net cultivated area in the state is 168.01 lakh hectares. In 2000-01, 11.5 lakh hectares of culturable, waste/user land and 16.9 lakh hectare of fallow land still available for profitable use. About 26.3% of net sown area is without any irrigation; and 75% of total land holdings in the state were less than I hectare in 1995-96 and accounted for 33.75% of the total area of holdings. The average size of holdings in this category was only 0.39 hectare. The increase in the number and area of uneconomic and non viable agriculture holdings along with shrinking average size of holdings are major hurdle in capital formation and growth in agriculture. The fact that the state produces a large amount of food and edibles, agro processing is an area that needs to be strengthened. The state has 109 working sugar mills which crush around 30% of the total sugarcane produced in the state. There are not sufficient agro processing units in the state even though the state accounts for producing 22-25% of total fruit and vegetable produce in the country. ● Forest cover has gone down considerably after the formation of Uttaranchal State, the hilly/forest part of UP earlier. Only 4.46% of UPs geographical area is under forest cover now. ● The total road length in the State is 1,03,795 kms. This includes 3,774 km of national highways, 7,392 km of state highways, 9,911 km of important district roads, 25,246 km of other district roads and 72,931 km of rural roads. UP is considerably behind in terms of road length. The states total metalled roads at 93.6 kms. per lakh of population in 1996-97 is far less than all other major states except Bihar and West Bengal.