Does development matter if Gujarat lags behind in health, welfare and education?
The BJP says it’s fighting the elections in Gujarat on the so-called “development” plank. It is for the electorate to decide, and half of them have already done so, whether they want to reward the incumbent state government for the “development” they have witnessed — enough water for households, electricity in every house, good roads, higher income from agricultural produce, other big ticket infrastructure — whatever the issues the electorate want to highlight upon.
Gujarat remains one of the fastest growing states, and has managed to keep its fiscal deficit in check. But despite all the development that has happened in the state, it remains sluggish when it comes to social indicators — health, welfare and access to education. According to a study by Bloomberg Quint, the state has the second lowest literacy rate, as per the 2011 census. Literacy rate is 78.03 per cent, compared to Kerala, with 94 per cent, or Maharashtra, with 82.34 per cent. Regarding access to education (measured by the prevalence of colleges per lakh people), the state fares lower than the national average.
It has only 28 colleges for every lakh people, compared to 50 for Karnataka and 43 for Kerala. Gujarat is also laggard in terms of gender parity in education, the report says. Students who enrol in higher secondary schools after completing secondary education are far less in Gujarat compared to Kerala, which also fares very well here. The state also has fewer engineering, technology, management and chartered accountancy institutes compared to other states.
Interestingly, Gujarat’s spending on the social sector is the second highest among the states compared with Maharashtra, which tops the list. That the state is still a laggard in social indicators could be because the issue is of such magnitude that even an earnest effort by successive governments there is not making any significant changes to the grassroots. Or it could be the manner in which the schemes are targeted, or the priorities given. This is not to take away any laurels from the BJP government in the state, for its continued push for investments, its thrust on infrastructure, and its efforts to ensure more social stability, which is also quite important for businesses.
Most social indicators in the state can be illustrated to show where the country as a whole stands in social indicators. The rapid strides made by some Indian states notwithstanding, the performance of a few others take the sheen off the charts when it comes to our performance as a nation. And that also brings to the fore the need to better channelise the country’s efforts in upping its social development ante, by taking care to boost what is “the other India”.
At a conference on social entrepreneurship in Mumbai, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, chairman of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, a London-based global initiative to encourage entrepreneurs identify areas of sustainable development in regions that need them the most, said that the opportunity for such initiatives is $12 trillion (Rs 774 lakh crore), one-third of which is in India.
In India, the Commission has identified some 60 business opportunities, which are not just business opportunities but opportunities for job creation too. One of the Commission’s thrust areas is agriculture — a sector that is the most critical but is often the most talked about for all the wrong reasons, including farmer suicides, low productivity, farm wastage and its over-dependence on monsoon.
Vineet Rai, founder, Aavishkaar and the Intellecap Group, which organised the event, said that it is crucial to look at small companies, because that is where the growth is going to come from. A decade down that line, many big companies will doubtless be challenged by the business environment, and some of them will not be able to survive that challenge.
That brings us back to Gujarat. There is a new way that the world is looking at development, and social indicators play a big role there. So, can the CEOs of the states — we call them chief ministers — be judged on some new parameters? If that happens, how will some of our chief ministers fare?
Just some food for thought.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)