Gujarat model OR Gujarat muddle?

Scholars have shown that Gujarat’s development achievements are actually far from dazzling. The State has grown fast in the last twenty years. And anyone who travels around Gujarat is bound to notice the good roads, mushrooming factories, and regular power supply. But what about people’s living conditions? Whether we look at poverty, nutrition, education, health or related indicators, the dominant pattern is one of indifferent outcomes. Gujarat is doing a little better than the all-India average in many respects, but there is nothing there that justifies it being called a “model.” Anyone who doubts this can download the latest National Family Health Survey report and verify the facts.

• Development economist and activist John Dreze today said there was "no evidence" that the so-called "Gujarat Model" was a model in any sense, pointing out to the state's backwardness in social indicators.
• Almost all ranking of development indicators, whether it is social indicators, human development index, child development index, multi-dimensional poverty index and all the standard poverty indexes of the planning commission. Gujarat almost always comes around the middle.
• It was the case much before Modi became chief minister and it remained the case after that, said Dreze, who helped draft the first version of NREGA (now called the MNREGA).
• He describes the Gujarat's development model as a counter-example, because of the disappointing social indicators inspite of the high growth in terms of standard economic indicators.
• Dreze believes that something lacking and it can be an illustration of the limitations of relying on private-enterprise growth for development in the larger sense.
• Commenting on ratings-agency Moody's recent upgrade of India's sovereign-credit rating to 'Baa2' from 'Baa3', Dreze says he doubts the credibility of such an index. "If you dig into the methods behind these indexes, there is very little to them, except that they are taken seriously!"
• He also raised concerns about the Aadhaar scheme, fearing that it will create an infrastructure of surveillance. His opposition to Aadhaar was not related to welfare programmes, but civil liberties. Aadhaar multiplies the power of the state to keep track of everybody over time - he said, flagging apprehensions that it could lead to stifling of dissent, as a lot of the databases that are going to be linked will become accessible to the government.
• Dreze partly blamed the stagnation of agricultural growth for the unrest and the recent agitations of Patidars, Jats and others for reservations. The people, who have seen the size of their landholding shrink with the population explosion in the last few decades, have certainly suffered. That creates a sense of grievance, but there must be other things also.

 

Read the article "Gujarat Muddle" dated April 11, 2014

Any development model with Public Private Partnership (PPP) is fundamentally flawed and unsustainable because it enables few enterprising people become extraordinarily rich at the state expense, breeding corruption and impoverishes the state and its people. The state ends up paying huge amounts of money in future payments in the range of 2-10 times. Consequently rich poor divide will increase. Modi's Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train is another white elephant in disguise which will enable Japan loot away our money perennially. Development based on market borrowing is not development at all but is similar to selling family silver for fancy expenses.