RajivSpeak

  The World Bank has advised the Gujarat government to begin raising resources for building urban infrastructure in major cities by selling off public land to private developers. In a recent policy research study, “Inventory of Public Land in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India”, it has said in Ahmedabad alone huge financial resources “could be generated by monetizing public land” to the tune of Rs 54,000 crore which implies per capita availability of fiscal resources amounting to Rs 97,000. This is double the amount estimated by the state government’s High Powered Expert Committee (HPEC) at 2009-10 prices – Rs 43,386 “for the entire range of physical urban infrastructure for the next twenty years”.

  Despite wide talk of Gujarat being No 1 in things financial, top rating agency Crisil has found that the state is failing to improve upon its financial inclusion index compared to most of India. The top consulting firm's new report has revealed that the financial inclusion index, called Inclusix – a concept it worked out in alliance with the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, to find out how deep is financial penetration among larger sections of population – has revealed, Gujarat has failed to improve its performance over the last four years in providing the three critical parameters of banking services, viz. branch penetration, deposit penetration, and credit penetration. 

The latest figures released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) suggest that the levels of industrial effluents discharge through the common effluent treatment plants (CETP) in chemical industrial estates across Gujarat continue to remain “high” and “worrisome”. Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti’s Rohit Prapati and six other environmental activists in a statement, quoting CPCB figures, have alleged, “More worrying as the situation has not changed much after the problem of industrial pollution first came to light in the nineties.”

Predicting that the realty sector will continue to bleed till the first half of 2014, an Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) survey has found that the situation in Gujarat is likely to be particularly bad, if the current trend is any indication. In a statement, the apex industries body said, “Outstanding investments attracted by the real estate sector in Gujarat have plummeted from over Rs 2.37 lakh crore as of September 2012 to about Rs 1.90 lakh crore as of September 2013 thereby registering significant drop of about 20 per cent”.

Apprehensions about viability of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s pet Rs 2,500 crore project, to built as the world’s tallest statue in the memory of Sardar Patel, are now coming from unexpected quarters, albeit “off the record.” One of the topmost government officials, known to be close to Modi, told Counterview on condition of anonymity that several “issues” about practicality of the project – which is part of the overall Modi drive to turn the area surrounding the Narmada dam into a major tourist attraction – have “yet to be resolved”.

  The proposed Dholera special investment region is likely to lead to large-scale changes in livelihood patterns, as and when the plan to convert the area into an industrial-urban hub succeeds. The “Draft Environmental Impact Assessment of Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR) In Gujarat” – prepared for the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Ltd by the Senes Consultants India Pvt Ltd for environmental public hearing on January 3, 2014 – has suggested that there will be large-scale impact on the livelihood patter in the “sparsely populated” 930 sq km area, consisting of 22 villages, which will form the DSIR, and which is proposed to be converted into a modern industrial urban township over a period of three decades. 

It was a lovely evening in Ahmedabad, and I decided to go to Gandhi Ashram with a friend to have a chat with a senior Gandhi scholar who sits quietly in a modest, less than 10x10 room – Tridip Suhrud. Suhrud is currently involved in digitizing anything and everything related to Mahatma Gandhi. “We have already digitized nearly five lakh pages and put them online, including Gandhiji’s complete works. Once we have finished digitizing around 25 lakh pages, which would include works by all those who have worked and interacted with Gandhi, you wouldn’t need to go anywhere to do research on Gandhi. All you would need to do is to go online”, he tells me modestly as I begin talking to him. A reputed social activist, Achyut Yagnik, known as an expert on Gujarat and Ahmedabad (Penguin has published his books on the cultural history of both), introduced me to Suhrud in mid-1990s. At that time, Suhrud was a faculty at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Thereafter, I would meet Suhrud a...

  The new environment impact assessment report proposed for the development of Dholera special investment region, being planned as a “dream city” by the Gujarat government, admits that the area where the new industrial township is being planned is flat, low lying and is prone to flood, and things may aggravate in case of urbanization. 

In a major decision, the Gujarat government has dropped its plan to develop Bhavnagar port as an alternative to the Dholera port in the Gulf of Khambhat. It had had given up Dholera port following its decision to go ahead with the Kalpasar project as a huge sweet water lake by damming the. The state government had offered the top state industrial group, Adanis, to develop Bhavnagar port as alternative to Dholera port, which the Adanis were to develop in association with the JK Group, to provide Dholera special investment region (SIR) a major boost. Dholera SIR, to be developed south of Ahmedabad district, off Gulf of Khambhat, is proposed as a modern industrial-urban centre. To be developed in three phases, each of 10 years, so far no investors have shown interest in Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's ambitious SIR.

Despite being covered by a Government of India health insurance scheme, poor families in Gujarat are made to make cash payment for hospitalisation, both in private and public hospitals. A recent research paper, “Promoting universal financial protection: evidence from the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) in Gujarat, India”, by a group of four researchers – Narayanan Devadasan, Tanya Seshadri (both from Institute of Public Health, Bangalore), Mayur Trivedi (Indian Institute of Public Health, Sardar Patel Institute Campus, Ahmedabad) and Bart Criel (Department of Public Health, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium) – has said that despite the health insurance scheme to the below poverty line (BPL) families, in majority of cases health expenditure is met through out-of-pocket (OOP) payments at the time of illness. The study suggests, this is happening despite the fact that, to protect poor families, the Government of India launched the national health insurance scheme (RSB...

A top Indian sociologist has accused a recent Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University report for seeking to legitimize the chaturvarna social order as a “positive aspect towards life”. The CEPT report, titled "Impact of Caste Discriminations and Distinctions on Equal Opportunities: A Study of Gujarat" (2013) was prepared in order to question the findings of a top NGO, Navsarjan Trust, “Understanding Untouchability” (2009), which found widescale prevalence of untouchability in 1,589 Gujarat villages it surveyed. Criticizing the CEPT report, Prof Ghanshyam Shah says, it is guided by the “perspective” which “facilitates harmony or samras in society”, adding, “Such perspective contradicts the principles laid down in the Constitution.”

The Gujarat State Petronet Ltd (GSPL) – the foremost subsidiary of the state’s former bluechip public sector undertaking (PSU), Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) – is not sure about the source of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) which should flow into the 4,000 km long gas pipelines it is currently involved in laying down between Kakinada, off Andhra Pradesh coast, and Bhatinda in Punjab and beyond.  A well-placed source in Gandhinagar Sachvivalaya has told Counterview that the GSPL, which is laying down the pipeline at the cost of Rs 13,700 crore, “as of now has no captive gas to bank upon that could flow right up to Punjab.”

Gujarat’s net enrollment ratio, as percentage of the enrollment data of grade one (2008-09) and grade five (2012-13), including enrollment in unrecognized schools, is one of the worst in India, despite the loud talk of the annual celebration of the Kanya Kelavni school enrollment drive. This has been revealed in the new Flash Statistics of the 55-page report, “Elementary Education in India”, released by the Ministry of Human Resources, Government of India (GoI). According to the report, Gujarat’s net enrollment ratio at the lower primary level stood at 83.99 per cent as against the national average of 90.78 per cent, suggesting poor enrollment drive for the children of school-going age.

Female participation in workplace is an important yardstick of women’s empowerment in society. The recent Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) survey, even while providing data on the economic health of industrial units separately for each state, simultaneously gives details of the working class employed in the factories. An analysis of the ASI data by Rajiv Shah suggests that participation of women in the organized industrial sector is one of the poorest in Gujarat. In fact, Gujarat ranks 14th in a list of selected 22 major states: The latest Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) report, based on a complete survey of India’s industrial establishments carried out between October 2011 and April 2012, has sought to bracket Gujarat with the socially backward states of India as far as women’s participation in the organized industrial labour force is concerned. Released in 2013, the report has suggested that, lately, there has been some acceleration in employment opportunities provided by Gujarat ...

 In case Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi comes to power and takes over reins of Prime Ministership, which many believe is most likely, India’s working class should be prepared to further tighten its belt under an aggressive liberal economic regime. Also, few of the social security steps, such as for guaranteeing rural employment, taken by the Government of India in the recent past, albeit to “woo” the electorate, would start losing their sheen, and may even been dropped. And if proof is needed for this, say informed sources, one finds an outline of this happening, as reflected lately in the views expressed by two well-known economists known to be close to Modi.