In a first of sorts, the Uttar Pradesh government under Mayawati issued a white paper on her performance but avoided any mention of the controversies surrounding the government, including the Greater Noida land sales, the allegations of siphoning of funds in the National Rural Health Mission and accusations of land grab against some of her party legislators.
The 84-page document drawn up hastily before the state assembly elections nowhere says there is any room for improvement in the state administration. It claims that accountability has been the key elements of the decision making by the government. State cabinet secretary Sashank Shekhar Singh said the Opposition parties should go through the white paper ?before making allegations of corruption?. In a statement issued with the document, Mayawati said she has inherited corruption as a legacy of the past and is trying her best to eradicate it.
The paper contains details of the functioning of various projects of two dozen departments including revenue, industrial development, cane development, urban planning, power, agriculture, health, and rural development. Each has worked in a ?transparent and as per laid-down procedure?.
The paper as well as the chief minister?s statement was passed by the state cabinet and read out by the cabinet secretary in a press conference.
While the paper refers to the allotment of farmhouses, it makes no mention of the controversies regarding the chief minister?s quota. Instead it says all land allotted for farmhouses has been as per the procedure for allotment of institutional plots and the entire process right from inviting applications through national dailies to the evaluation of applications and documents thereof was transparent.
On the health mission, the white paper says the scheme was targeted to raise institutional deliveries and, in other cases, for providing financial assistance to women opting for home deliveries. As a result the number of institutional deliveries has risen from 1.68 lakh in 2006-07 to 23.41 lakh in 2010-11.
The cabinet secretary said UP is the first to issue a white paper on functions and tasks undertaken. ?We have uploaded full information related to the performance of 24 departments on the UP government website. I want to tell you that we have been able to maintain transparency in whatever work we have done so far,? he said.