The Chief Executive Officer of the country’s think tank NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant have categorically stated that around 200 eastern districts in the country from 7-8 states are the reason why India is dragged along holding it back from developing. He also added that it is time these states and districts need to be named in public and also be shamed. Although he did not name these states and districts one has a fair idea of at least the states since he mentioned it as from the eastern areas of the country where these sickly districts are located. Then for obvious reasons, the Northeast with the exception of Sikkim with some parts of Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram all will surely be part of what he meant. Sikkim is excluded because it has one of the highest per capita GSDP among the states being fourth highest in the country in 2016-17. Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram also fall somewhere in the middle of the all India comparison in terms of per capita GSDP. Therefore the remaining states of the Northeast namely Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura along with Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa will sum up to about 200 districts. These states are all somewhere at the bottom of the GDP per capita list. We can give or take a few districts from the total 28 districts of both Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram with some districts of the other eastern states. Therefore with just a brief look into the latest economic survey of the country, the disclosure by the CEO of NITI Aayog brings to light exactly which are the sick districts and states in India. A few decades back, such statements would have attracted more intense political debates with ample use of the regional and minority card. Some states would have considered it as insensitive ridicule for being poor and under-developed. With changing times along with the growth that the nation have experienced in recent times, poverty is now either correlated with laziness or corruption. Micromanagement of these districts might offer varying reasons and will not necessarily be similar among all the districts and states, but on face value it indicates collective failure of the people and the governments. There can be other unique reasons especially in the militancy-ridden states in the Northeast where the pilferage of developmental funds are more. At the same time some of the states may be artificially amplifying its unique problems to even underperform. However, what these states need to realise is that they just might have laid down all the cards in the table. It now seems certain that a time has come for all these state governments to realise that the country and the majority of the people is not willing to accept freeloaders anymore.
