Gujarat Development under Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi took charge of Gujarat when its economy was shrinking and the domestic growth was stagnant.. Faced with massive economic losses, he re-organized the government's administrative structure and embarked upon a massive cost-[...] exercise. As a result of Gujarat government efforts under guidance of modi, Gujarat registered a GDP growth rate of over 10% during his first tenure. This was the highest growth rate among all The INDIAN states. Continuing this extraordinary run, over the last year GDP growth rate was registered at 11.5%.

Vibrant Gujarat global investor summit (VGGIS)

The Government of Gujarat is organizing the biennial Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit (VGGIS) . Based on the theme – Gujarat Going Global and aimed at bringing together business leaders, investors, corporations, thought leaders, policy and opinion makers; the summit served as a perfect platform to understand and explore business opportunities with the State of Gujarat. First VGGSIS started in 2003 and 4th VGGIS completed during 12-13 January, 2009.

  • VGGIS 2003 - Signed 76 MOUs worth US $14 billion
  • VGGIS 2005 - Signed MOUs for setting up projects worth INR 870 Billion
  • VGGIS 2007 - Signed 343 MOUs worth Rs 461835 crores. This includes Rs 14811 crore investments promised in 21 MoUs signed at an IT Summit. On the top of the investment brackets were 28 MoUs for Special Economic Zones with an investment tally of Rs 170,889 crores.
  • VGGIS 2009 - Signed 8668 MOUs having total investment of Rs.12,24,482 crores.

In VGGIS 2009 most prominent India Inc leader like Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Sunil Mittal etc projected Narendra Modi for India's Prime Minister Post. Tata group chief Ratan Tata, the chief guest on the occasion, echoed the general sentiment there when he said, It is stupid if you are not in Gujarat . He said it was the right time to enter the state and stay for long.

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT)

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City or GIFT is an under-construction world-class[1] city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It will come up on 500 acres (2.0 km2) land. Its main purpose is to provide world-class physical infrastructure (electricity, water, gas, roads, telecoms and broadband), so that finance and tech firms can relocate their operations there from Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon etc. where infrastructure is either very bad or very expensive.[2] It will have a special economic zone (SEZ), international education zone, integrated townships, an entertainment zone, hotels, a convention center, an international techno park, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) units, shopping malls, stock exchanges and service units.

To develop and implement the Project, Government of Gujarat (GOG) through its undertaking Gujarat Urban Development Company Limited (GUDCOL) and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) have established a Joint Venture Company, "Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company Limited" (GIFTCL).

Various Development Programs

As a Chief Minister, Modi concretely put to practice his envisaged Gujarat by means of various yojana. This includes Panchamrut Yojana , a five-pronged strategy for an integrated development of the state, Sujalam Sufalam, a scheme to create a grid of water resources in Gujarat in an innovative step towards water conservation and its appropriate utilization.

  • Krishi Mahotsav - agricultural research labs to the land
  • Chiranjeevi Yojana - to reduce infant mortality rate
  • Matru Vandana - providing preventive and curative services under the Reproductive and Child Health Programme
  • Beti Bachao - campaign to protect the girl child to improve [...] ratio
  • Jyotigram Yojana - to electrify every village
  • Karmayogi Abhiyan - to educate and train government employee
  • Kanya Kalavani Yojana- to encourage girl child education
  • Balbhog Yojana - for midday meal for students

As a result of these yojna's Gujarat became number one state in India in various perspective. Gujarat became now a developed state within developing country. Many scholar and India Inc leaders suggested that if Gujarat model will be applied in all states in India then India can easily become a developed nation.

River Linking project

River linking project was initiated by NDA government India but it did not get implemented across country by successive governments. Gujarat government kept working on this project and as a result 20 rivers in Gujarat got interconnected and because of this Saraswati river which does not have water got Narmada water. Sabarmati river which was dry from last 10 years got water of Narmada river. This project helped in spreading water across whole Gujarat. This eradicated the scarcity of water for farmers and helped them in cultivation.

Sardar Sarovar Narmada Project

45,000 villages and towns which used to get drinking water once every 15 days now get it daily from the World's Largest Irrigation Network made possible by the Sardar Sarovar Project on Narmada. Sardar sarovar narmada dam height raised from 90 meters to 121.9 meters which quenched the thrust of people of 58 cities, 2700 villages across 11 districts.

Check dams for ground water recharging

Few years back in Gujarat water level was going down. Gujarat govt created 15,000 check dams in all rivers and major canals of Gujarat. River linking project also helped a lot in even distribution of water all over Gujarat. Result of these ground water recharging was ground water level starting coming up.

108- Free Ambulance Service

Similar to 911 emergency servies in USA, Gujarat Govt has started 108 emergency calling medical services. For getting urgent medical attention patient needs to dial 108 and experts rush to help him. This service is right now fully functional in all rural/urban areas of Gujarat. Mobile ambulances are used to carry patients to hospitals. This helped a lot in reducing the cases of death because of delay in medical attention. To avail this service patients just need to dial the toll-free number `108′. According to Hyderabad-based Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) in the past one year since its launch at least 150,000 emergencies have been handled. ”I want to make the 108 Emergency Response Service (ERS) one of the eight wonders of the world,” said Venkat Changavalli, CEO of EMRI.

Road Development in Gujarat

Infrastructure development

Today Gujarat is number one state for infrastructure in India. Gujarat is Petro-Capital of India with India’s 54% crude oil production, 45% natural gas production. Gujarat has 2 LPG terminal and 2200KM of gas grid across state for distribution of gas. Gujarat is also SEZ capital of India with 18 Special Economic Zone's (SEZ) which is largest in all Indian states.

Gujarat has 74000 KM of road, 13 airports (largest in country), 41 ports (largest in country) , Agro park, industrial parks. All these are best in India and most of these developed under Narendra Modi government.

Girl child education

Gujarat government started Kanya Kalavani Yojana to encourage the girl child education. Kanya Kelavani Nidhi has been created with a long term goal that no girl child in Gujarat remains illiterate; and the efforts have started yielding results. In 2006-07, the dropout rate of girl child has dwindled to 3.68 from 20.81 in 2000-01 (std 1 to 5) and to 11.64 from as high as 36.30 (std 1 to 7).

The dwindling drop-out rates are equally supported by new enrolments through Kanya kelavani Rath Yatra (girl child enrolment drive), a unique initiative in Gujarat. Since 2003, every year in the month of June, the Chief Minister along with his team travels to remote villages to encourage parents to enroll their children in schools. It is a three day long statewide drive covering all the villages and the urban areas in scorching summer heat. An atmosphere of festivity and celebration is created. The young children now wait keenly to get themselves enrolled into schools.

Another initiative is Vidyalaxmi scheme, introduced during the last 5 years in villages where female literacy rate is lower than 35% and in the urban areas for the girls belonging to the below-poverty-line families. Vidyalaxmi bond of Rs. 1000/- is given to girl students who take admission to the 1st std and 8th std. The girl receives the amount of bond with interest on completion of std 7th and 10th respectively. This ensures higher retention rate.

100% e-Connectivity (GSWAN)

Gujarat is today India's only state to have all its villages connected by internet. Under the e-governance scheme, the grampanchayat of every single village in the state has been provided internet connection and direct connectivity to Gandhinagar. Modi government started GSWAN (Gujarat state wide area network) which is Asia pacific largest IP based network for e-governance.

Jyotigram-Yojna

24 Hour Power Supply (Jyotigram Yojana)

In India there was not a single village that has 24hr electricity available. Gujarat govt in 1000 days electrified all 18000 villages with 3phase electricity supply 24hours through “Jyotigram Yojna”. This helped a lot the rural areas in education, IT, small scale industries etc. Gujarat electricity board had deficit of 2500 crores Rs which because of conscious efforts of Govt now converted into 400 crores of profit.

Krishi Mahotsav

The Krishi Mahotsav is a knowledge sharing rendezvous of the farming community, a month-long event that brings together the farming community, government officials, scientists and many more connected with agriculture. This event facilitates seamless flow of knowledge from the agricultural research labs to the land. Besides practical demonstrations of modern agricultural methods and tools and guidance queries are answered and problems solved, the festive mood grips millions of farmers as the Krishi Raths travel through thousands of villages. Not caring for heat and dust the cabinet ministers, officials and hundreds of dedicated workers travel to remote villages to facilitate the process of knowledge sharing; over 227 Kisan Raths (mobile exhibitions) drive through all the villages of Gujarat to celebrate this festival of productivity. Year after year the Krishi Mahotsav has been improving considerably productivity through knowledge sharing and orientation of farmers towards value added agriculture, modern marketing methods, organic farming as well new technologies.

Infant mortality rate (Chiranjeevi Yojana)

India stands on 127 positions in human development index. In India’s 6 lakhs villages we have approximately 2000 gynecologist. To reduce the Infant mortality rate Gujarat govt started "Chiranjeevi Yojana". They started public/private partnership in health sector. Gujarat govt told private sector doctors that if they will treat any BPL pregnant woman and save her life than govt will pay her charges which are approx 2000Rs. Due to this scheme in 1 year 1,58,000 women got benefit of this scheme. In absence of this scheme 6000 pregnant women could have died in just one year.

Soil Health Card Scheme

Gujarat is a first state who issues Soil Health Card scheme for every land to farmers . Now every farmer takes the soil specimen and provides to the scientists and they examines the mineral composition in the soil and based on that they provides the fertilizer with appropriate mineral percentage. This helped in soil enrichment and also reduced the erosion of the land in great extent. Early in Gujarat farmers were able to grow only on crop in a year now because of balanced fertilizer farmers are able to grow three crops every year which also increased there profit by threefold.

E-governance for Anti Corruption

Gujarat government started many intiative for e-governance and to curb corruption with the help of IT.

  • 'Tele-fariyad' - a unique grievance addressing system
  • 'Swagat Online' - a model case of e-transparency and accountability.
  • 'Gyan Ganga Project' - for rural wireless connectivity.

Gujarat First

  • The first state to implement the BOT Law for encouraging private sector participation.
  • The first state to have two fully functional LNG terminals.
  • The first state to implement the interlinking of 20 rivers.
  • The first state to provide uninterrupted 24hour 3phase electricity to its 18000 villages

Awards and recognitions

More than 60 awards bagged by the state during the tenure of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

  • 16-10-2003 - UN Sasakawa Award for outstanding work in the field of disaster management and risk reduction.
  • Oct-2004 - CAPAM Gold Award from Commonwealth Associations for innovations in governance.
  • 26-08-2004 - Gujarat bagged top honour's for its performance in the power sector as President A P J Abdul Kalam
  • 24-02-2005 - Nirmal gram award to a village in Rajkot district in Gujarat by Government of India for sanitation facilities.
  • 25-04-2005 - Elitex Award by Department of Information Technology, Govt. of India Science and Technology Department for "PRAGATI", a GIS Software developed by Bhaskracharya Institute of Space Application and Geo-informatics, Government of Gujarat
  • 21-05-2005 - Gujarat awarded the status of the Best State after a survey of all the states in the country, carried out by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, New Delhi.
  • 01-06-2005 - UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Award for reconstruction of a Gurudwara damaged during the earthquake.
  • 05-08-2005 - Best Investment environment Award by India today
  • 05-08-2005 - Most Economic Freedom Award by India Today
  • 27-11-2005 - Gujarat won the first ever Gold Award at the India International Trade Fair at New Delhi.
  • 14-10-2005 - Readers of the Gujarati weekly "Chitralekha" rated Shri Narendra Modi as "Person of the Year". Tennis star Sania Mirza was ranked second and superstar Amitabh Bachchan stood third. Awards were given away on 18-05-2006.
  • 12-11-2005 - India Tech Excellence Award by India Tech Foundation for Power sector reforms and Initiatives
  • 30-01-2006 - In a nationwide survey conducted by "India Today", Shri Narendra Modi was declared the Best Chief Minister of the country.
  • 23-03-2006 - Nirmal gram award by Government of India to a few villages of Gujarat for sanitation facilities
  • 31-07-2006 - Gujarat again ranks first in the country in "Implementation of 20 point programme".
  • 02-08-2006 - Gujarat tops among 35 states of the country in "Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan".
  • 12-09-2006 - Ahalyabai National Award function, Indore.
  • 30-10-2006 - Asian Innovation Award at Singapore from Wall Street Journal and the Financial Express for Chiranjeevi Yojana (initiative for reducing maternal and infant mortality rate).
  • 04-11-2006 - E-governance award to e-dhara project (computerization of land records)
  • 27-11-2006 - Silver Award the India International Trade Fair 2006
  • 10-01-2007 - ELITEX 2007 -Best E-governed State Award from Government of India
  • 05-02-2007 - Adjudged the best CM for the third time in the nationwide survey conducted by India Today - ORG Marg, a unique achievement for any Cm during a 5 year tenure
  • 10-12-2008 - Gujarat Wins Wind Power Award.
  • 29-01-2009 - Gujarat received five awards for the best use of information and technology from administrative reforms and public grievances and Information technology department of the Central government.