Of late, the demand for a separate telengana state has intensified, with some political parties switching the gears on the agitation.  Also, I have been reading about the other demands for separate states. In many cases, the demand for a separate state is mainly based on the reason that a particular region is not economically well developed when compared with other regions. Over the last decade, three separate states were created, and we are hearing some more demands, and there will be many more coming up in the future. Rather than looking at creating a separate state as the only solution, governments should work on making sure that the development is properly distributed to all the regions. Moreover, creation of states is not a possible option for all the regions at all the times. The current telengana movement (from AP), has been there for a long time, and no visible progress has been made so far, except that political parties keep talking about it and media has something to cover all the time. In the telengana case, there are definitely some serious complications like who would get Hyderabad (AP state capital).

However, the point that I want to make is, whether the governments give separate states or not, it is important for all of us, to address these disparities in regional developments within the states, and should make sure every region gets its deserved share in developmental schemes. In a democratic country, I think, a section of the people have the right to demand a separate state, if they are not happy in the current state. I don’t think we can make any general argument on whether a region would benefit if it is made a separate state or not. It depends on the leadership vision on how they want to develop the new state. General advantages would be better governance, better developmental representation, and more government jobs. However, more government  jobs doesn’t just improve economy, because the productivity doesn’t change much after a separate state is made, and the revenues need to be developed to pay for all these new jobs.  Not all the small states formed are flourishing. 

When only some regions of the state prospers and gets importance in funding, industrial and irrigational developments, the other regions would obviously be unhappy. If this continues for some time, the backward region people feel cheated in their own state and d start agitations. So, the real solution lies on the shoulders of the people and the government representatives (MLA’s and MP’s )to make sure that their regions received due importance and on the governments to immediately address any disparity issues.  If this is not addressed properly, sooner or later, there would be many more demands for separate states, and the basic issue of regional development disparities would be forgotten, and the concentration would be on just getting a separate state.