Power generation grows, farm produce increases
After land the other infrastructure that industry looks for is electricity and road network. On the power front, the achievement has been lauded by the then Union finance minister P Chidambaram, who incidentally happens to be from Congress and a staunch ideological opponent of BJP. In May 2008, he said, “Gujarat has shown us the way on how to fix power (problem) for agriculture.”
Revamping water management and extension services apart, Gujarat government achieved a major breakthrough in rural electrification. Launched in 2003, Jyotigram Yojana ensured 100% electrification of the state’s villages and reasonably regular supply in three years. The scheme included a crucial component of power supply for groundwater management with eight hours a day of power made available. Economists attribute Gujarat’s double digit growth to some of these major initiatives on the supply side.
While industry has received arguably a preferential treatment, agriculture has not been ignored. Planning Commission’s figures cited earlier speak for themselves. Former President A P J Abdul Kalam has hailed high agriculture growth that Gujarat has achieved in the past six years. The state has registered a sustained agricultural growth of 7% to 9% over the past six years — far ahead of country’s national average growth of just about 2.5% to 3%, Dr Kalam told a farmers’ meet organised at Basti in Uttar Pradesh in February, 2011. Dr Kalam’s statement was based on the findings of the researchers at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, who told him that “unparalleled growth rate was achieved by the Gujarat government through schemes under public-private partnership and initiation of several innovative programmes.”
According to Dr Kalam, “Firstly, they (Gujarat) created a dedicated power grid for agriculture to ensure uninterrupted 24-hour supply to the rural areas where revolutionary steps were taken to improve upon the irrigations systems whereby 20,000 hectares of non-irrigated land was turned into a rich agricultural area…. The message I wish to convey is that when there is committed leadership with a vision and ability to bring all the stakeholders together… the productivity increase in food production can be achieved.”
Incidentally, interlinking of rivers or inter-basin transfer of water has to a certain extent helped irrigate the un-irrigated land to some extent in a largely water-deficient state. Dr Kalam has eulogized the state for its effort at no less a forum than IIM-A. The “People’s President” while talking to the students on the campus in September, 2008, said, “There should be a programme for interlinking of water bodies at state level across the nation. Every state should interlink its water bodies. Once this goal is achieved, there can be a nationwide interlinking program.” When students told him about Gujarat’s Sardar Sarovar Project, the Narmada’s successful interlinking with the Sabarmati and of different lakes in Ahmedabad, Dr Kalam exclaimed, “Very good … There should be a research on good practices and such practices should be published for wider reach.”
PDS system could be model for India: SC
The Supreme Court had commended computerized public distribution system in Gujarat (and Chhatisgarh, too), saying that it could be the model for India.
Other welfare measures, especially children’s and pregnant women’s health, expansion of knowledge in rural areas, too have elicited admiration. UNICEF has picked up Gujarat’s scheme for pregnant women, as reported by The Times of India in January, 2009. “The Gujarat government’s initiative (Chiranjeevi Yojana) is a departure from previous practice as it takes sole responsibility for the reimbursement of private health-care providers, rather than relying on intermediary parties such as insurers,” the UNICEF in its report ‘State of World Children 2009’ stated.
Another area in which Gujarat has been hailed is taking help of technology to spread knowledge. Incidentally it is again a Union minister who has commended the effort. Speaking at a programme in Ahmedabad in July, 2011, Union law minister Veerappa Moily praised Modi for his effort to make available e-library at even taluka level. Moily said that the Centre had plans on the same line and a nationwide e-library was going to be introduced on August 15.
Praising the Gujarat state judiciary for its initiatives and achievements, Moily added, “I’ve come here to learn from you.” Moily said he would circulate Gujarat High Court’s mission mode programme to reduce pendency of cases to the other high courts as well.
Technology has also been used to take governance to the doorstep of the people. Dr Kalam has been special reference to this in his speeches as this has also brought transparency in the system. He thinks lack of transparency is coming in the way of development reaching villages, and cited as a model ‘Krushi Mahotsav’ being implemented by the Gujarat government to ensure that the rural sector reaps the benefits of growth. Nearly 100,000 government officials, from the CM to taluka-level staff, agriculture scientists and other stakeholders spend a month in rural areas demonstrating the best of technologies to farmers.
“Such initiatives indicate a strong administration will to ensure development reaches the rural sector. Krushi Mahotsav tours all 18,600 villages of the state, providing information and counseling on soil health, organic farming, technology inputs, irrigation, etc, besides infusing a new spirit of change and mass mobilisation,” he said, delivering the UPSC lecture on ‘Governance and Public Service’ in December, 2011.
Social sector remains an area of concern
Gujarat still has a long way to go. Despite impressive growth, the state has to cover a lot of ground, especially on the social front as some surveys have revealed. The state has far too often thumped its chest and individual politicians have mouthed some parochial statements. Can there be a ‘Republic of Gujarat’? Well, no. The state also has to hasten to complete the Narmada project in which the people have invested physically, emotionally and financially. They have been terribly let down by the successive administrations. The political wind blowing across in northern India may revive the old aspiration of some of separate states of Kutch and Saurashtra. The political and social leadership has to ensure the state remains united. The image of cops has suffered a blow like in no other state and it is a subject of concern
Taking rapid strides in industrial development, the state has to cover a lot of ground, especially on the social front as some surveys have revealed. Gujarat lags many states which in the past have been condemned as “BIMARU”. (BIMARU stands for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the term when read as an acronym means “sick” in Hindi).
Despite impressive growth, Gujarat has not been able to reduce malnourishment levels, while Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, among the most backward in the country, have done better in improving the lot of their marginalized dalits and tribals. These are some of the conclusions of the India Human Development Report 2011 released by the government in October, 2011.
The report said high rates of child malnutrition were a major concern for the country. It said Gujarat was among the worst performers, with 69.7% kids up to age 5 being anaemic and 44.6% suffering from malnutrition, proving that high growth was no guarantor of improvement in health.
Complimenting Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and UP CM Mayawati, the report said, “It is worth citing the progress achieved by two of the economically backward states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.”
The country witnessed an improvement in spreading education but its record on sanitation and nutrition remained dismal. Quoting a study of 2010 on UP, the report said, “With high GDP and per capita growth rates in recent years, even dalits have come to share the ‘new prosperity’. They can now be equal to the ‘general’ category people.”
Santosh Mehrotra, director-general of the Indian Applied Manpower Research and the report’s lead author, said the country was moving towards social inclusion, with social indicators of Dalits, tribals and Muslims showing vast improvement. He also said there had been a marked improvement in the performance of poorer states, indicating greater social inclusion. The author was not happy with Gujarat and Karnataka’s performance.
“High incidence of malnutrition among children is found among poor states. However, Gujarat, with a relatively high per capita income, witnessed a higher incidence of child malnutrition,” the report read.
Union Minister Jairam Ramesh terms it “retrogation” in social development indices. He rightly points out, “Economic development does not guarantee human development. It does not automatically guarantee social development. A more disturbing fact is that actually economic development may lead to retrogation of social indices,” he told the gathering of environmentalists and intellectuals on the occasion of the release of the Human Development Report, 2011.
The emphasis on hi-tech development projects and high profile Vibrant Gujarat does not impress the farmers and the marginalised folks who feel a sense of relative deprivation thanks to SEZ-driven prosperity of the corporate world. Unless this development model delivers at the grass roots, no political party can expect support of the people at the bottom of the pyramid. Gujarat needs to blend dominant development model and inclusive development that empowers the marginalised mass.
‘Social sector initiatives results in due course’
Prof Bakul Dholakia, ex-director of IIM-Ahmedabad, points out that Gujarat has taken a lot of initiatives on social sector, the results of which will bear fruit in the next few years considering such efforts take time to show, sometime a decade or even more.
Going by the growth rate of the economy, Gujarat has the capacity to lead the country faster out of the economic slowdown. India has been growing at a fast rate in the last couple of years. The faster you grow, the more you get hit by the slowdown. Under the circumstances, Gujarat can exercise the pull factor.
Investment is the key to recovery. While the investment climate of India is not as good as it used to be a few months ago, Gujarat continues to be an attractive destination. Besides, Gujarat is a leader in terms of savings. The economic scenario of Gujarat should not falter since the state government is striving hard to create enabling conditions.
The economic well being has an impact on the education sector. Entrepreneurs in Gujarat have been philanthropic and the awareness of social responsibility among the top entrepreneurs has always been high. This is a welcome sign. The collapse of the stock market has been a dampener as the entrepreneurs from the state have relied on the market to tap resources more than their counterparts elsewhere in the country. Yet, their willingness to support the cause of education is remarkable. The easiest thing for them to do in these times would have been to cut down on expenditure on education, but they have not done so.
“What we require at this stage is a policy framework that essentially keeps the places of higher education free of regulations. Winds of change are sweeping our country. We have opened the door for all sectors but still following closed door policy as far as education is concerned. We want private education system to perform like private sector, but impose on it the restrictions of government sector…. We need quality education but putting up 10 structures is not going to solve the problem. What goes on in those structures is important,” he wrote.
Prof Dholakia feels that development in the state is on auto pilot now. “I have had the opportunity to witness all the four Vibrant Gujarat summits. Drawing an analogy, I think the inaugural summit of 2003 was like an aircraft travelling a distance on the runway. In the next biannual summit Gujarat sort of took off and in 2007 the state was airborne.
“The summit of 2009 has pushed Gujarat into a different plane. It’s an orbital jump. A commitment to invest $240 billion (about Rs 12 lakh crore) is phenomenal. Mind you, it is a shade less than the Gross Domestic Product of India (a little more than $1 trillion),” he told one of these authors.
The purpose of any journey is to travel the distance. You can say the journey of “global Gujarat” has just begun. The 8,000-odd MoUs signed will give the state the required height to travel any distance. The opportunity is there to gain any speed one wants. Tail wind is favourable and should propel the state faster.
Sure, there will be air pockets and resultant turbulence. But the captain is skilled and knowledgeable and has the ability to manoeuvre the aircraft out of the trouble. The whole point is that it is a long journey, and Gujarat and its people have to be prepared for the long haul as the journey is never complete if you haven’t travelled the distance.
There has been some criticism in the past of the gap between the intent expressed by the entrepreneurs and the actual investment made. But let us realise that conversion percentage is rising and the trend is likely to continue. There are reasons to believe that it will rise from sharply now on.
