 "Saurabh Patel")
While underlining growth as its thrust area, the new government in Gujarat under its first woman chief minister, Anandiben Patel, wants to improve incomes in rural areas by providing rural youth with better employment opportunities. This was highlighted by state Finance Minister Saurabh Patel during the Business Standard Round Table Conference, 'Gujarat Under New Leadership', in Ahmedabad.
With the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre, the Gujarat government expects better coordination between the state and the Centre, which would only help Gujarat grow faster than in previous years, Patel said. The state government will announce three major policies - industrial, electronics and information technology - in the next few months. These will be as aggressive as the already-announced textile policy.
One of Chief Minister Anandiben Patel's major thrust areas will be the social sector, with a specific focus on women's empowerment, rural employment and self-help groups. "We also believe in giving rural employment. Rural families should also earn more. A massive drive will be undertaken to improve milk production, number of animals and quality of animals. A lot of financial benefits have been given to women's groups and individuals. We believe that one milch animal per family would improve income by Rs 4,000 per month," Patel said, adding that these groups would be given land, a subsidy to build a warehouse and a grant for machinery.
The government is also focusing on strengthening the position of women in rural areas through schemes for animal husbandry and agriculture. It will also grant special loans to universities for projects to improve crop yields. Special schemes to support farmers in building warehouses for grain stocks were announced in the state budget for 2014-15.
Patel said that this year's budget has a woman's touch, with a substantial allocation to the social sector. "Our chief minister is aggressive and personally supervises on a day-to-day basis social sector issues like sanitation, uplift of women, education of the girl child and health," he said. The government also plans to target specific sectors like diamonds and polymers in Surat and southern Gujarat to develop them into big trading centres.
The minister made it clear that with Modi at the Centre, the state and Union governments would be in sync, with Gujarat following the same path shown by him (Modi) over the past 10 years. The policies of the state government will be in line with the party's manifesto and there would be hardly any change from policies defined within it. "I feel that Gujarat can grow at a better rate than earlier, because earlier we did not have support from the Centre, and today we have very good support from the Centre."
He gave the example of the issue regarding raising the height of the Narmada dam in Gujarat. The NDA government gave its clearance to raise the height by 17 meters, within 17 days of taking charge. "The decision on the Narmada dam height will drastically increase acreage and bring additional income to farmers. Had this decision been taken five years back, today Gujarat would have been different," Patel said.
Giving another example, Patel said that the environment is one sector where there is hardly any issue pending with the Centre. "Today we are confident that decisions that were pending because of policy paralysis at the Centre (during the UPA government) will be taken and Gujarat can grow faster," he explained.
Patel announced that the Gujarat government would announce a few key policies in the next few months. "We are going to come up with an electronic hardware and an information technology policy shortly. Both these policies are going to be equally aggressive. Also, in the next couple of months we will be coming out with the new industrial policy which will highlight certain areas which the government would like to put thrust on," he said. The state's last industrial policy was announced in 2009. The Gujarat government has also targetted an increase in the share of manufacturing in its gross state domestic product (GSDP) to 32 per cent, from the current 27 per cent.
In manufacturing, the state government has focused on cottage enterprises and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a fact that was reflected in the state's 2014-15 budget. The government has announced special concessions for allocation of land to SMEs. Even private builders who build small industrial estates of up to 500 sq ft will be given concessions. "We want to practically double our SSI (small-scale industry) units in the coming years as this is going to generate a lot of local and self-employment. Cottage industry is also being given a huge push. For the first time in the country a government has assured banks that if you give a loan of up to Rs 1 lakh as working capital to cottage industry and if the bank is not sure of getting back the loan, the state government is going to give a bank guarantee," the finance minister said.
For skilled manpower the state government is promoting Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), and increased the budget allocation for ITIs from Rs 440 crore to Rs 1,200 crore in the last two years. The government is trying to reach out to the maximum possible number of private companies so that ITI students get maximum exposure after completing their courses. It has decided to give a loan of Rs 1 lakh to ITI pass-outs to enable them to start their own business.
Patel believes the aviation sector needs to be developed in the state to promote tourism. "Surat is one of the fastest growing cities of the world. Yet connectivity is so poor. These are some of the decisions that will be taken now in our favour by the NDA government," he added.
On the goods and services tax (GST), Patel expects all outstanding issues to be resolved in the next few months. However, the revenues of states must be protected, and without the necessary IT infrastructure the implementation of GST would not be possible, he added.
