GUJARAT – A MYTH MUCH HYPED, AND GUJARATIS MISLED

We all know that Mr. Modi is past master at fooling all the people all the time. Most of us even in the social sector condescendingly and approvingly talk of his ‘development’. Here is his development story completely busted.

1. During 1995-2000 and 2001-10, Gujarat increased its annual rate of growth from 8.01% to 8.68%. But so is the case with other major states such as Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh… Even smaller states like Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh have registered growth of 11.01% and 8.96%, respectively.

2. During 2004-09 in Industrial Growth rate hitherto backward states like Orissa [17.53%] and Chattisgarh [13.3%] have far surpassed Gujarat [12.65%].

3. In the area of credit-deposit ratio, Gujarat is far behind other major states.

4. In terms of per capita income (PCI), in 2011, Gujarat ranked sixth among major states with PCI

5. Though Gujarat, with 31.8% people below the poverty line did better than Maharashtra and Karnataka, it still lagged behind Kerala, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, where poverty levels were 19.7%, 20.9%, 22.9% and 24.1%, respectively

6. On three important social indicators, viz life expectancy at birth (LEB), mean years of schooling (MYS) and school life expectancy (SLE), Gujarat is far behind some other states.

7. With respect to Human Deve-lopment Index (HDI), Gujarat’s story is devastating. The HDI for Gujarat, in 2008, was 0.527 and it ranked 10 {+t} {+h} among major states. Kerala stood first (HDI: 0.790), Himachal Pradesh scored 0.652, Punjab 0.605, Maharashtra 0.572 and Haryana 0.552.

8. Shockingly, in terms of hunger — as revealed by the ‘State Hunger Index 2008’ — Gujarat ranked 13th among 17 big states and worse than Orissa.

9. In Gujarat, the percentage of women suffering from anaemia has risen from 46.3% in 1999 to 55.5% in 2004, and amongst children from 74.5% to 80.1%.

Who is saying all this: Bhalchandra Mungekar, a member of the Rajya Sabha and former member, Planning Commission

For the full story check out the Times of India of Jun 12, 2012, “Myth and Reality” or clickhttp://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-12/edit-page/32176123_1_gujarat-narendra-modi-industrial-growth