Rankings are no pyramid; they are a ladder and there's room for only one at each rung. A historical advantage in infrastructure and its fields of gold may have kept Punjab on the top rung of the India Today State of the States study for long but Himachal has broken free to force a switch this year. The hill state is India's best performer of the year, and Punjab will have to pull itself up just to tread the same second rung again next year as other states begin to snap at its heels.
Composite ranking: Big states
The India Today State of the States study, conducted annually since 2003, closely monitors the performance of states across a range of categories that include agriculture, health, education, governance, investment, macro-economy, consumer markets and infrastructure. Put them all together and one obtains the overall living conditions for the common man in every state and Union Territory. Since different states perform differently across the eight heads in the study, the composite ranking gives a better picture of what is happening overall. And that's where Himachal Pradesh is the top-scorer.
What did Himachal do to become India's topmost state? It invested in infrastructure in a sustained manner, ensured that health and education are priority areas, and ensured that law, order and justice are not given the go-by. Certainly, Himachal Pradesh has benefited from Central largesse, but so have many other states. The difference has been that successive governments of different political parties have kept to the same broad path. Himachal's success needs to be celebrated but it is not the only model. Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Mizoram have been performing well, each taking a different route and improving upon its historical performance. There are, however, commonalities among states that succeed-good governance and sustained effort spanning decades and governments.
