Today, we are going to celebrate our 39th Statehood Day of Himachal Pradesh. On 25th Janaury, 1971, Himchal was established to emerge as eighteenth state of India. Over these years Himachal has seen many ups and downs and on our Statehood Day I’d like to highlight some of our major achievements to send a positive vibe of encouragement to you all.
Himachal Pradesh has been the first State to launch State wide Area Network called HIMSWAN in the entire country and was also declared as second best state in the country in e-Governance.
If we look at our literacy then we see Himachal Pradesh has one of the highest literacy rates in India. To encourage primary education govt. took the initiative to provide free food to the children in school. Hamirpur is among the top educated districts in India. Education rates among women have become quite encouraging over the years.
To be more proud of your state, NFHS-3 released on 11 Oct 2007 recorded a Fertility rate of 1.9 in HP, which made it one of the top states that no more contribute to the population explosion of India. If this trend of fertility awareness continued among the people, a further decline in the fertility rate can be seen in near future. When we look at the vaccination coverage i.e. percentage of children between 12-23 months of age who have received all recommended vaccines, Himachal records 74%.
If we compare our state with our country we see that from the Seventh Five Year Plan till the Ninth Plan, Himachal has shown a higher economic growth rate than the national average. The Eighth Plan (1992-97) and Ninth Plan (1997-2002) recorded Himachal’s average annual growth rate at 6.3% and 6.4% respectively, against the national averages of 6.2% and 5.6%. However, on the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007) the growth rate of the state was calculated 0.02% lower than the national average. Still this figure is not that less that we cannot overcome it.
The per capita income of Himachal is higher than the per capita income of India and as per the current prices, the total GDP was estimated at Rs 25,435 crore (Rs 254,350,000,000), as against Rs 23,024 crore (Rs 230,240,000,000) in the year 2004-05, showing an increase of 10.5%.
Over the decades of Statehood we also see great improvement in the road connectivity of the state. Though, Hamirpur topped in road density in the country in 2002. Recently, government has undertaken many efforts to widen and construct many roads to benefit the people of various regions of Himachal.
Not only roads but Himachal govt. has made efforts to construct and propose new railway lines in the state. Recently, inaugurated ‘Jan Shatabadi Express’ from Una to New Delhi is one such achievement of the state. Himachal’s oldest Kalka-Shimla railway line was recently declared as world Heritage site by UNESCO.
98.4% Himachal household is having electricity which makes it a topper in India. It is a state that not only fulfills its people’s electricity needs but also sells hydro electricity to other states such as Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan.
Himachal was the first state to ‘ban polythene bags’ in India and its efforts to protect Environment and Increase the Green Cover in the area conferred it ‘Diamond State Award’ last year.
According to a 2005 Transparency International survey, Himachal Pradesh is ranked the second-least corrupt state in the country after Kerala.
And, above all even today Himachal Pradesh is a peaceful state.
Jai Himachal. Jai Hind.
(Photo by Amit Kanwar)
Raised in Shimla and originally from Mandi district, Disha wears many caps which includes being part of a lead team of a fast growing IT company based out of Chandigarh. Earlier Disha was associated with My Himachal and visits Shimla regularly.
