Gujarat : Developed State or Media Hype ?

There is question about Gujarat whether it is really developed state or not. Then why so much hype? 

 The important part is at the end which says or rather asks whether it is all hype. 

Somewhere along the way, the debate degenerates and it turns in to a comparison between Gujarat and Maharashtra - its immediate neighbour state. Both the states were carved out of one bigger state.

 

Someone praised and extolled the state of Maharashtra in comparison to Gujarat - to which I wrote a comment, and obviously this friend did not like to read about the shortcoming of his home state and all my attempts to make him see the truth failed to impress him.

My moot point is that the charts and figures or statistics put out by various agencies and departments of the Govts of States and also by the various agencies and bodies of the Govt of India, actually do not represent the facts - as these rely mostly on figures culled out from the level of revenues coming in from different geographical locations - mostly from big cities. The fact is that often the actual production takes place elsewhere.

In case of Maharashtra state, since the state capital Mumbai is also the financial capital of India, its’ presence within this state, is a kind of huge distorting factor.

Take for example, the fact that Reliance has its HQs in Mumbai and it pays its taxes in Mumbai and accordingly, all the income of Reliance gets added to the GDP of Maharashtra. Now look at the fact - Reliance has its biggest manufacturing facility at Jamnagar in Gujarat. It has large investments in Maharashtra as well but bulk of its business income comes from Gujarat but it does not get added to GDP of Gujarat.

Likewise the Govt owned oil and gas companies like ONGC, Oil India, Indian Oil, GAIL, etc., have their production coming in from far off areas but since their HQs are in big cities, their entire income is added to the cities having their respective HQs.

The same goes for the Tata Group which has its HQs in Mumbai but its factories are spread all over the country - for example it has most of its tea gardens in Assam. In fact, all big tea companies have HQs in Kolkata whereas most of the tea gardens are located in Assam. Now the fact is that taxes are paid by tea companies at their HQs in Kolkata and it gets added to GDP of Bengal. Thus, Assam is deprived of its fair share of revenues despite all the tea gardens being located within its geographical area, and GDP of Bengal gets distorted hugely. (Tea gardens in Bengal are almost like dead).

Another notable example is NSE and BSE which deposit huge amounts of taxes daily, earned from investors and traders in stock markets - spread all over the country. However since taxes are paid in to the Govt Account within Mumbai - within the geographical area of Maharashtra, and thus the GDP of Maharashtra is hugely distorted. There can not be a better example of fact being distorted hugely and being entirely suppressed by figures. Other than few jobs, NSE & BSE do not give much to Mumbai and Maharashtra. In fact, these two bodies produce almost nothing.

This explains as to why despite huge GDP, much of Maharashtra remains poor and underdeveloped. Leave aside, Mumbai and few regions near Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, and some parts of Konkan, the state has large areas which may be compared to any poor place in Bihar and Odisha. This reliance upon false notion of being so highly developed state might be the reason for acute poverty in districts like Beed, Jalna, Latur and Naxal infested Garhchiroli. It is high time the politicians and civil servants take notice of the reality and start working upon developing these areas. And not only in far off places, but even in cities, more than half of the people live in abject poverty. and this applies not only to Maharashtra but all the big and so called advance states.

Interestingly, in GDP figures, Uttar Pradesh comes among top three, along with Tamilnadu and Maharashtra - thanks to farmers, but it does not make Uttar Pradesh a developed or ideal state. In fact, Uttar Pradesh still continues to be a poor state.

I hope this will suffice to build up a strong case against taking figures as facts.

Now about Gujarat. To seek an answer to this question, let us first see how we are going to judge the development itself. To me, the quality of life of citizens comes first.

Now if we look at the tables and charts available in public domain, smaller states like Goa, Kerala, Sikkim, and even my home state Uttarakhand are invariably shown much above the larger states. Having been to Kerala, I was impressed since there is hardly any difference in the quality of life in urban and rural areas in Kerala. The same goes for Goa. I have not seen Sikkim but it is said that its rural areas are as clean and are having good facilities as may be available in its capital city Gangtok.

Thus, it may be derived that despite having huge GDP figures and high per capita incomes, citizens of big states are not necessarily having a better quality of life.

In case of Gujarat, there is hardly any Mumbai type big city and its overall GDP is almost realistic and a true median of the income arising from urban and rural areas.

Now to look at it from a different angle. Gujarat being largely an arid region - has low water availability but the way Gujarat has gone about distributing the water from Narmada to its far flung areas is nothing but amazing and highly commendable.

Also, while the BRTS experiment failed miserably in Delhi ( and in Bangalore too) then why is it that Ahmedabad made a success of BRTS and proudly displays it.

Why is it that several states like Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, etc., having high focus on agriculture, thanks to plenty of water from rivers originating in Himalayas, have not done so well in Dairy as has been the case in Gujarat (and even Rajasthan). If one goes on NH 8 from Mumbai to Delhi, via Ahmedabad, Ajmer, and Jaipur, one may see scores of milk vans going to Delhi from the areas of Gujarat and Rajasthan.

My last hope about Gujarat arises from the fact that it has realised the importance of agriculture in the economy, and the immense need of developing the villages. Thus, focus of Gujarat is on farming and to improve the irrigation facilities. Please read about SAUNI and you will realise that this experiment needs to be replicated all over.

Thus, even if you feel that the Gujarat saga is all hype, the portents indicate a far better future for the natives of Gujarat - specially for farmers of Saurashtra region.

In the end, let me add that despite huge population, India stands united solely because it is presently able to grow enough to feed its people. I firmly believe that if we continue to ignore our farmers, and allow the farm output to go down, then probably infighting and a rebellion might take place - for food and water.

And if that happens, no amount of GDP, FDI, or nuclear arms will be of any use.

So, give more water to farmer and he will give you more food to eat.