The present small States, if Tourism, Defence related expenditures and new extractive mineral Projects are excluded from their GDP, are also, not encouraging examples of viability.

Goa – 2 districts with 14 lakhs population and an area of 3702 Sq. Kms
Sikkim – 4 districts with 5.4 lakhs population and an area of 7096 Sq. Kms
Tripura – 4 districts with 32 lakhs population and an area of 10,492 Sq. Kms

(For comparison – Greater Hyderabad has a population of over 1 Crore and an area of about 7, 900 sq. kms).

For more refutation of the Small States argument see article at Annexure.

The answer is NOT more divisions into smaller States, but an Administration able to provide more Transparency, Accountability and a quicker Response. Allow the people from an economically disadvantaged region of the State to meet similar disadvantaged people of other regions of the State so that they can be convinced that their disadvantage is not due to any specific targeting. Economic deprivation is wide spread and needs to be better tackled. This can best be done by a cohesive and strong State with a balance of resources (including people) and either linguistic boundaries or rational geographic boundaries.

The calls for the breaking up of UP in to 3 or 4 States, and for the formation of Gurkhaland from out of West Bengal etc are based on linguistic and cultural grounds. UP is a State in which regions have been clubbed together as belonging to ‘Hindi and its dialects’, themselves quite separate languages. The dialects are now claiming their own linguistic identity. The demand for Telangana had no similar ground.

UP – Paschim Pradesh (Language Hindi) – 26 Districts – Pop = 7.67 Cr.,
Per capita = Rs. 15, 870 /-

Awadh Pradesh (Language Awadhi) – 21 Districts –
Pop = 3.65 Cr., Per capita = Rs. 13, 150 /-

Purvanchal (Language Bhojpuri) – 21 Districts –
Pop = 7.65 Cr., Per capita = Rs. 9, 288 /-

BundelKhand (Language – Bundeli) – 7 Districts –
Pop 80 Lakhs, Per capita = Rs. 12, 878 /-

(Bundelkhand calls for additional districts with similar linguistic background from Madhya Pradesh.)

It is noteworthy that Telangana activists did not seek to compare its development with those other parts of the erstwhile Hyderabad State which are now backward regions of Maharashtra and Karnataka, as Telangana is orders of magnitude better off than them, which is only due to it being part of Andhra Pradesh with the Capital, Hyderabad city, within it. The division of AP into Telangana and AP was done hastily, illegally and against the decision of the then AP Legislature and without reference to the States Reorganization Commission.

All challenges are also opportunities, and it is now the right time to review such problems in their entirety and take appropriate actions to settle them once and forever. If at all the concept of Linguistic States is to be given up on, then on what other basis do we seek to re-make our States and how?

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