New data released by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), in the report “Key Indicators of Household Consumer Expenditure in India”, released in June 2013, have suggested that the purchasing power of the people, as reflected in the monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE), has been rising at a much slower pace in Gujarat than most states of India. As a result, Gujaratis, on an average, are forced to spend a higher percentage on food items, as against non-food items, which are a secondary priority of people. Non-food items, according to the NSSO, include transport, fuel, light, clothing, footwear, education, medical bills, entertainment, paan and cigarettes or bidis, and durables.

 The latest National Sample Survey (NSS) data have suggested that Gujarat's regular wage earners, salaried classes and the casual workers are being paid one of the lowest wages as compared to most Indian states. While Gujarat may claim to have the highest pace of urbanisation in India, shockingly, as against the all-India average per day earning of urban regular wage earners and salaried persons of Rs 450 per day, in Gujarat it is a poor Rs 320. This, if the NSS, which carried out its survey in 2011 and 2012, is to be believed, is the lowest compared to anywhere else in the country.

  A Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)-sponsored study has found strong discrimination against poorer sections of women -- irrespective of whether they belong to scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (T) or general category -- in the delivery of maternal health care services in Gujarat.

A recent Planning Commission-sponsored study, “Refining State Level Comparisons in India”, by Pranjul Bhandari, who works as economist at the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has found that a “refined” analysis of the performance across 21 major states suggests that Gujarat ranks 16th in health, 14th in education and 11th in infrastructure. The analysis is already creating flutter against the backdrop of the claim by those favouring Gujarat’s neoliberal model, that state’s alleged poor performance in the social sector is more an outcome of “fudged” figures, dished out by the Government India’s different ministries. The “refined” analysis for comparing states is considered a new and a more scientific methodology, adopted in order to find out how well states perform given the availability of resources at their disposal. It differs from the “raw” analysis, under which Gujarat ranked 12th in health, 10th in education and 6th in infrastru...

  In a major setback to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's proposal to collect iron from farmers all over India to build the Statue of Unity in the name of Sardar Patel in the downstream of the Narmada dam, a a top aide of the Gujarat CM has said that the iron from the farmers “cannot be used for constructing the world's highest statue.” The aide, who wanted not to be named, told www.counterview.net that the “iron collected from the farmers will obviously be of different types and suspected quality. Some of it may be simply scrap or junk. Obviously, it cannot be used for constructing a quality Sardar statue.” 

Another three-day Gujarat government-sponsored Shala Praveshotsav, a “festival” involving the entire state officialdom, starting with the Gujarat chief minister, meant to enroll children at the primary level, has come to an end. An official release at the end of the festival claimed, “The state-wide enrollment drive gained great momentum under the leadership of chief minister Narendra Modi, who himself graced the mahotsav in Mendarada block of Chiroda, Samadhiyala and Rajesar primary school at Junagadh district.” The official release claimed, on the third day, a total of 1,56,884 children in the age group 5+ years were enrolled, comprising 76,802 girls and 80,082 boys. It added, “Thus, in the three days of the enrollment drive, a total of 4,80,556 children consisting of 2,35,263 girls and 2,45,293 boys have been enrolled. Saying that ministers, “IAS, IPS and IFS officers of the state attended programmes at various backward blocks of Gujarat” for the festival, the release sought to cele...

 Even as the Gujarat government is planning to come up with a new slum policy 2013, with “rehabilitation” of the slum-dwellers with the help of private developers as the key thrust, available literature suggests that any effort to uproot slum dwellers would mean further heightening their already vulnerable status. Recently, in a paper, “Low Carbon Green Growth Roadmap for Asia and the Pacific”, providing a roadmap for citywide slum upgradation, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) said that “the poor and the vulnerable in cities and towns can aspire to have security, shelter, basic infrastructure and services with citywide slum upgrading”, adding, “Up to 35 per cent of Asia-Pacific urban residents in slums with proper urban planning can have adequate shelter and basic services through proper urban planning.” UNESCAP believes, this would be possible, only in case of “on-site slum upgrading” which would “mean improving the physical, social,...

  Top technocrat Dr Anil Kane, who gave the ambitious project for damming the Gulf of Khambhat the now popular name of Kalpasar more than two decades ago by conceptualising it, has heavily come down on the Gujarat government for making the entire project “unviable and unworkable.” Talking with Counterview, Dr Kane said, a major factor that will make the project redundant is that, under the new project design, the Narmada river has been removed from the Kalpasar reservoir. “From where will you get water if Narmada river is not made part of Kalpasar?”, he wondered.

Rajendra Joshi The draft new slum policy 2013, called “Gujarat Sum Rehabilitation and Redevelopment Policy”, overlooks the issue of slum upgradation altogether, despite the fact that it was found to be working successfully in Ahmedabad in 1990s. The government has not cared to float the draft policy for public debate, which has further constrained any meaningful dialogue on it. The Gujarat government is mulling over the new Slum Policy 2013, and its draft, which has been prepared, has mooted changes from the earlier policy of 2010 in order to make it attractive for the urban poor, who were promised 50 lakh houses in the BJP manifesto during the December 2012 elections. And, in order to provide teeth to do it, it has decided to “manage” slums by making the Gujarat chief minister as head a new authority, Gujarat Affordable Housing and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (GAHSRA), which will have all the powers to “decide and/ or guide matters related to land use, town planning, master planning...

A new Planning Commission-sponsored study, “Refining State Level Comparisons in India”, by Pranjul Bhandari, economist at the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and a chief brain behind the Economic Survey 2012-13, says that her “refined” analysis has found that Gujarat stands 16th in health index, 12th in education index and 11th in infrastructure index among 21 major Indian states. Bhandari has arrived at these figures on the basis of a new methodology she adopts by “refining” raw data in order to find out how well do states perform in the context of the resources at their disposal.

Is discrimination of Dalits in the delivery of basic services an international human rights issue which needs a much deeper exposure than has been the case so far? The question is significant, because, despite lobbying at various levels on the part of the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) during recent years, the Government of India has strongly refused to acknowledge caste discrimination as an international human rights issue, which should be dealt with in the UN. Whether it is water, sanitation or health, the discrimination continues, and government sops have failed to do anything to subdue its impact.  This is quite in line with what a UN expert who visited India in 2012. In her annual report, the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, studied the links between stigma and discrimination in the realization of the right to water and sanitation. She found that “caste systems are striking examples of systems ...

A well-known international organisation, Save the Children, has quoted official data to suggest how the neoliberal growth model, for which a section of economists project Gujarat as the idea, has failed to bring down social and economic inequalities in India.  A new report, “Reducing Inequality: Learning Lessons for Post-2015 Agenda – India Case Study”, by top international organization, Save the Children, with presence in more than 120 countries and 15 Indian states, has blamed the neoliberal growth model, for which Gujarat is being projected as the best example of success, for the current woes of widening gap between the rich and the poor in India. The report says, “There is evidence to suggest that the poorer sections of India were actually further marginalized under the neoliberal economic regime introduced in India in the early 1990s.” The report, in fact, states that the inequality gaps in India have increased at several layers. It says, “Poorer states like Bihar, Uttar Prade...

A recent survey, jointly carried out by Navsarjan Trust and Pani Hak Rakshak Samiti, has found that the areas around Ahmedabad which the Gujarat government wants to project as the future model of development — by developing a special investment region and an automobile hub — are also stigmatized by untouchability practices. The survey was done in five talukas of Ahmedabad district – Dholka, Dhandhuka, Sanand, Bavla and Viramgam. It has once again proved, if any proof was needed, about how untouchability is coming in the way of the rural Dalits’ failure to access water in the immediate neighbourhood at a time when drought-prone situation prevails in parts of Gujarat. The survey, carried out by Navsarjan Trust, Ahmedabad-based human rights organization, says that the situation is particularly acute as scarcity has been declared in 10 of Gujarat’s district. While 939 villages have been declared scarcity hit, another 2,979 have been declared semi-scarcity hit. “Dalit women have to particul...

Hasmukh Adhia On May 31, when I visited Gujarat Sachivalaya, the centre of Narendra Modi's powerdom, there was commotion among state IAS babus. While I met a dozen-odd IAS officials, including some of the senior-most, one of them looked rather annoyed, despite being known to be so close to the CM. He had been asked to reach the new CM office, built as a separate building, but didn't want to go. He told me, "Hell. They have put a jammer. No mobiles work. Its nauseating. I don't want to go there." Yet, this babu was was as frank as ever. Offering me a cup of tea, he told me that while a "decision" had been taken to reemploy retiring K Kailashnathan (KK to his colleagues) for the same job - KK headed the CM office for seven years - it "merely awaited" Modi's "red pen sign". I asked him bluntly: "But I was told you were offered the post. So you wouldn't replace KK?" He smiled, looked around, and blurted out: "My dea...