Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has thanked the people of the State for extending their wholehearted support to the State Government in implementing the policies and programmes in letter and spirit. He said that it was due to their unflinching cooperation that Himachal Pradesh had been adjudged second overall best performing big state of the country, besides first in education and health sectors in big category states survey conducted by prestigious magazine ‘India Today’.In the countrywide survey, Himachal Pradesh had shown marked improvement in best performing category state by improving its rank from seventh to second this year. In addition to this, State had improved its ranking in best performing big States in law and order from 11th of previous year to 4th this year. He said that the State had also made marked progress in most improved big states economy by improving its rank from 13th to 4th this year.While appreciating the efforts of Himachal Pradesh in health and education sectors the survey underlines that the literacy and health care programmes in the State have been encouraging in the recent years. It also observes that, ‘dedicated focus on the quality and spread of education and health care has helped the hill State overcome all odds.’
Detailing out the achievements in health and education sectors in the State, Jai Ram Thakur said that Himachal Pradesh had high literacy rate and was second after Kerala. There are 15556 government and 3252 private educational institutions in state in addition to 139 degree colleges, five universities, one central university, six medical colleges and IIT and AIIMS was also coming up.He said that every effort had been made to provide quality health services to people at their door-steps. The state government had launched ‘Himcare dsheme’ with a provision of free treatment up to rupees five lakh per family in registered hospitals and Rs. 42 crore had been spent on treating 43,000 patients so far. He said that Ayushmaan Bharat Yojna was being implemented effectively by the state and more than 35,000 patients have been treated by spending Rs. 33 crores so far. The Chief Minister said another innovation scheme named Sahara Yojna had been started for taking care of economically weaker sections and patients affected with serious diseases like cancer, paralysis, muscular dystrophy, thalassemia and parkinson etc. He said that Mukhya Mantri Chikitsa Kosh had been set up under which assistance of more than rupees four crore had been provided to 192 beneficiaries.Jai Ram Thakur said that the state was marching ahead in all sectors and had beautiful landscape, clean environment and good forest cover which make it a preferred tourist destination. He said that recently ‘Global Investors Meet’ was held which attracted investment worth over Rs. 93000 crore. The state was making efforts to attract investors to boost industrialization.