The country's 74th Republic Day was on Thursday celebrated with fervour in Sikkim.
A state level function was held at Kamzor stadium where the the Sikkim Governor Governor Ganga Prasad unfurled the national tricolour and took a guard of honours from the state police personnel. The Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang, his ministers and senior officials were present on the occasion. Earlier, the Governor, in his message to the people of Sikkim, said that the Himalayan state was progressing well on various parameters of development for which it has been awarded numerous national awards in the field of tourism, health, education, rural development, environmental management, etc.
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"My government has achieved all these feats by consistently adhering to the national perspective and the policy directives of the Government of India. Our approach is to develop a comprehensive developmental strategy designed to achieve the national objectives, paired with our own specific developmental needs aim," Prasad said. Sikkim has done better than the nation's average in some health indicators with the Infant mortality rate in the state coming down to five per 1000 live births as compared to 28 per 1000 live births in the country, he said, adding that the crude death rate in Sikkim stood at 4.1 against 6 in the country.
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However, the indicator of the crude Birth rate in Sikkim is below the national average of 19.5 and stood at 15.6 per 1000 inhabitants, which was a matter of concern, the Governor said, adding that the state government has already initiated various policies to incentivise the women of Sikkim to increase delivery beyond single child birth. The female Child Sex Ratio per 1000 boys, in Sikkim in the age group of 0-6 years as per Census 2011 has similarly gone up to 957 as compared to 918 in the country, he pointed out.
The state government has also accorded priority to provide quality education to the students of Sikkim for which the teachers were being provided training and exposure trips, Prasad said, adding the students were getting free textbooks and uniforms in order to reduce the number of student drop outs.
