Primary education keeps CM's flag flying high: Survey

The Pioneer, Sept 20, 2008
Santanu Barad Berhampur

It's the growth of primary education in the State that keeps the flag of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik high, if the survey reports of the weekly magazine- India Today is taken into account.
The special issue of the weekly dated September 22 that takes 'State of the States' as the cover story covering all most every sector to present life indicators in the States across India and presents an exclusive report on India's best and worst Lok Sabha constituencies.
The survey report of the magazine presents a brighter side of the State particularly in the education sector mentioning Orissa as the fastest mover in primary education. The survey takes literary rate, proportion of 10-plus children having completed primary education, ratio of girls to boys enrolled in schools, teacher-pupil ratio, total expenditure on primary-plus middle school or population as variables and ranks the State of Orissa 'Ten' among the twenty big States of the country. It suggests Orissa's position in primary education at tenth in 2008, fifteenth in 2007, tenth in 2006 and thirteenth in 2005. The report ranks Himachal Pradesh as no 'one' among the States, however suggests Orissa is the fastest mover mentioning, "Realisation of the role of education in economic growth has fuelled higher spending in improving access to education to empower the masses to benefit from emerging opportunities".
And for the relief of Naveen, the survey report also keeps Orissa among good States as far as the law and order situation is concerned. Orissa's position is thirteenth among the big twenty States and the report keeps Orissa among the States that maintain a constant rank through these four years from 2004 to 2008. To present this report, the magazine has taken actual strength of civil policemen/lakh population, percentage of pending cases (under Indian Penal Code), total cognizable crimes,incidences of murder, kidnapping, rape and molestation as variables.
One of the major embarrassing fact presented through this survey is the position of Parliamentary constituencies in which the Nabarangpur (ST) tops among the top 10 from bottom in the list of 543 constituencies in India and as many as nine constituencies of the State have been placed among the worst constituencies. Nabrangpur is being ranked no- 543 in socio- economic factor and 495 so far as the infrastructure is concerned. Following it is the Koraput (ST) parliamentary constituency that has been ranked at no- 542, while Kalahandi has been ranked at 539. The list follows ranking Mayurbhanj (ST)- 528, Keonjhar (ST)- 504, Kandhamal- 500, Bolangir- 497, Berhampur- 467 and Sambalpur at no- 461 rank.
One respite to the ruling party and party supremo of the BJD, Naveen Patnaik is that the report does not mentions the position of Aska Parliamentary seat- home to Assembly constituency of BJD supremo and Aska has been ranked as no- 436 in socio economic ladder and no-348 for its infrastructure. Berhampur, the constituency of the lone union minister of Orissa Chandra Sekhar Sahu has been placed at 467 by the survey report. And Cuttack has been ranked at 98 among the best Parliamentary constituencies in the country as per the survey report that took several variables and taking most of the data from the Delimitation Commission which itself used Census 2001.