Agriculture which is a state subject is growing by 1.5 per cent annually while the population increasing around two per cent. The price of inputs has gone up. Farmers have no crop insurance and the states no money for agriculture. Their complaint at the NDC meeting was valid: the Centre has put them in a straightjacket without disciplining itself. Still, the fact remains that the states' ills are of their own making. I have visited four states -- Orissa, Karnataka, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh -- in the last few weeks. It has been an unhappy experience. Governance is too chaotic, too dispersed and too politicised. None of the four chief ministers has either leeway or idea to plan, much less perform. Wrangling within their own party take most of their time.

Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik is a non-governing type. His reputation is that of an honest person, although inept in administration. But then he has left all to a clique of his favourite officials. His hobbyhorse is a grand design for the state. In the sterile seventh year of his rule, he has hit upon the idea of handing over the state's rich mineral resources to the multinationals. He has signed the biggest investment deal in the country with a South Korean firm for Rs. 51,000 crore for a steel plant. More deals are in the pipeline, this time to export minerals.

The state is, however, agog with rumours that multinationals pay "a cut" to Naveen's men at Delhi. There is no evidence of that and it may well be part of a vilification campaign which, he says, he has been facing since coming to power. In any case, Naveen doesn't lose sleep over such allegations. Nor does it bother him that he can't speak the state language, Oriya. But his greatest handicap is the comparison with his dynamic father, Biju Patnaik, who brought a minor industrial revolution in the state.

Karnataka has a coalition, Congress chief minister Dharam Singh heading it. He is also a non performer. But he attributes his helplessness to former Prime Minister Deve Gowda who, as a coalition partner, is riding his back all the time. Gowda is so meddlesome that he has opposed the proposal to have metro in Bangalore where roads cannot cope with the congestion. Despite government's inefficiency, a new industrial unit opens practically every day in Bangalore.

Karnataka too has a huge quantity of iron ore. Like Orissa, the Dharam Singh government sees to it that every irregular digging is allowed at the expense of forests, provided it gets its share in the bounty. As if the chief minister's plate is not full, Maharashtra governor S.M. Krishna, his predecessor, is not letting him devote much to governance. Krishna is reportedly in direct touch with New Delhi on the one hand and Bangalore on the other. He wants to return to Karnataka and claims to have better contacts with the coalition partner. Karnataka is one state where the BJP is concentrating in the south and getting some response.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh is all bluff and bluster. First, he whipped up frenzy in the name of corruption against his predecessor Prakash Singh Badal. But that is thing of the past. Amarinder is now out to fight the extremists. He reportedly encourages the worst type of religious elements to retrieve space form the Akalis. He has used the state machinery to capture the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee. But his trip to Canada has exposed his altruistic motives. He has not only visited in Canada the gurdwara of Khalistanis but has also met some of them. He too wants to mix religion with politics as the Akalis do. This keeps him busy, not the Punjab problems.

Andhra chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy is among the misperformers. The state ousted Telugu Desam one year ago and brought the Congress in the wake of frequent suicides by farmers. People expected a down-to-earth administration in place of a high-tech and high-flying chief minister Chandrababu Naidu they had roundly defeated. But they are a disappointed lot. The number of farmers who killed themselves during the entire five-year regime of Telugu Desam is equal to the suicides in the one-year rule of the Congress. Technical know-how has stopped outside the rural areas because it is considered one of the reasons for the defeat of the Telugu Desam. On the other hand,

corruption has increased manifold. It is an open secret that even the highest in the state has a cut in the allocations for irrigation projects.

The Naxalite problem is economic, not political. Talks with the radicals have not been successful because the state's kitty, after the usual outlets of corruption, has not enough to create jobs. This is one state which gives you the impression that the Telugu Desam would return if elections were held today. Even the Telangana where the Congress swept the polls may go the other way because of people's diminishing faith on the promise to constitute a separate state.

The visit to the four states has also confirmed my view that non-performance or misperformance means the same thing. It is the absence of governance. The deterioration in law and order, the demand for reservations and marginilisation of the poor _ all this has come to the fore because the basic problems have not been tackled. The chief minister either does not perform or misperforms.

In fact, India's experience is that a one-party government has generally misperformed. There is no accountability. But, in contrast, coalitions perforce are weak. They have to make compromises to keep the flock together. Since concession is the glue, the Centre has to give in when an ally threatens to break away. Consequently, New Delhi has become weak, although it still monopolises power. The states are slowly usurping the territory that belongs to the Centre. It cannot assert itself because it is too dependent on political parties in the state.

The Manmohan Singh government can do very little under the circumstances. The BJP-ruled states have made their own consortium to defy the Center.ÊThe parties supporting him want a pound of flesh. I wonder how much of the crisis the Left has tried to create at New Delhi is economic and how much political.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.