A report released by an economic research firm today said governance has collapsed in West Bengal as successive Left Front governments have failed in meeting the basic provisions of average governance.

 The research was funded by a Trinamul Congress member.
The report has identified five “diseases” West Bengal governance suffers from ~ inability to create a facilitating business environment, ensure law and order, provide physical infrastructure, social infrastructure and manage state finances.
“Till 1960s, West Bengal was a better performing state. But now in several parameters the state is lagging behind even the most backward states. And it’s not just the state government policies, even the delivery mechanism does not exist,” said Prof. Debroy.
He said 95 per cent of the information in the report is based on official data, including data prepared by the state government.
The report said be it industry or services, the state has low growth of employment and poorer quality of employment. On the basis of World Bank data, the report said, for business Kolkata ranks 12 and is lagging behind cities such as Patna (9), Ranchi (10), Jaipur (3), Bhubaneswar (5) and Lucknow (6).
“Huge backlogs in judicial cases coupled with alarming higher percentage of serious crimes compared to national average means there is ‘neither law nor order’ in West Bengal,” it said.
The number of policemen in the state is 94 per one lakh population while the national average is 126. In 2005-06, only 27.9 per cent of West Bengal’s households had access to safe drinking water compared to Maharashtra’s 78.4 per cent and Tamil Nadu’s 84.2 per cent. The state is underperforming in three critical elements of infrastructure ~ roads, electricity and drinking water. “States like Jharkhand are performing better,” the report said.