R K MISRA - Username India, Password Gujarat
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative but
success is a science. If you have the conditions, you get the
results.Thus goes an old saying. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi heading a BJP
majority government loosely garbed in an almost redundant National Democratic
Alliance(NDA) completes an year in office, it is time to delve deep and
dissect dispassionately to foresee the future.
Over a year ago, the conditions were ideal. A decade of
familiarity had already bred contempt. A thoroughly besmirched Congress led UPA
had to go. The young had little patience for the old. And in the vacuum came
charging the knight in dazzling armour, riding astride a pedigreed horse called
Gujarat. The results followed. Narendra Modi milked both ‘chai’ and
‘chant’ to bag the chair.
One year into power, the shining shield has given way to
name-sporting suits but India’s dapper prime minister resolutely refuses to get
of the high horse called Gujarat. All roads from Delhi can be traced back
to his home state. Gujarat remains the model for India to follow, fret not if
the public debt during his rule in the home state rose by a whopping Rs one
lakh crores! Even for a choreographed auction of the pinstripe which fetched a
record Rs 4.31 crores Modi chooses to fall back on Gujarat (Surat).
Bureaucracy
Known to trust officers more than his own politicians
(for over 3/4th of his tenure in Gujarat he did not make political appointments
to state public sector boards and corporations), he has officers from the state
in key administrative positions. By last count there were over 20 of them. P.K.Mishra (retired), principal secretary to
the PM, A.K.Sharma, joint secretary to the PM, Rajiv Topno, private secretary
to the PM, Hasmukh Adhia, secretary financial services, Tapan Ray, additional
secretary,electronics, Gauri Kumar, secretary, cabinet coordination, Rita
Teotia, special secretary telecommunications, Rajiv Takru, secretary, national
commission on minorities, Rajesh Kishore, secretary general, national human
rights commission, H.K.Dash, secretary, inter-state council secretariat,
P.K.Pujari, special secretary, agriculture, Amarjit Singh, additional
secretary, water resources, Ashim Khurana, secretary ,UPSC, Sujit Gulati, joint
secretary, textiles, P.K.Gera, director general, NIFT, Vijaylaxmi Joshi,
secretary, drinking water and sanitation, G.Mahapatra, joint secretary,
commerce, Sunaina Tomar, joint secretary, textiles.
Three IAS officers recently inducted from Gujarat are
G.C.Murmu who was the principal secretary to chief minister Modi, Raj Kumar,
secretary agriculture in Gujarat and R.P.Gupta who was the secretary, civil
supplies in the state. IAS officer J.P.Gupta from Gujarat was handpicked by
Modi to head Indian earthquake relief operations in Nepal. In effect, the
entire Modi team in Gujarat finds itself in key positions in Delhi. The latest
addition to the ranks is a retired chief secretary of the state,
A.K.Jyoti who joins as election commissioner under CEC Zaidi, who was a
batch junior to him in the civil services.
Police
IPS Officers of the Gujarat cadre are not lagging too far
behind. If all the officers languishing in jail in fake encounter cases in the
state have been reinstated, all those who fell foul of the Modi government
like Satish Verma and Rajnish Rai were marched off to remote penal postings.
Senior IPS officer Rahul Sharma has even quit the service. The rewards for
those who figured in the good books have been equally fast. A.K.Sharma, joint commissioner of police crime
branch, Ahmedabad has been made joint director CBI in Delhi. Other officers
marked out for similar movement are Surat police commissioner Rakesh Asthana
(ADGP-technical), Vipul Vijoy, IGP(coastal security), Subhash Trivedi and
Pravin Sinha, IGP(P&M). 1989 batch Gujarat cadre IPS officer Vivek
Shrivastav who was on deputation to the Intelligence Bureau was moved to head
the prestigious Special Protection Group (SPG) that provides security to the
prime minister, after Modi took over in Delhi. Thus it is that the bulk of the
positions across ministries and policing, investigation and intelligence
agencies are headed by the eyes and ears of Modi. If all powers in Gujarat
stood concentrated in the hands of the Modi led Chief Minister’s Office (CMO),
making pygmies out of ministers, the same phenomenon stands replicated in the
Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) now with similar results, including the plight of
the ministers.
Women and social welfare
Modi is the norm and Gujarat continues to be the flavor of
the season. Inspired by Gujarat, the Centre has already told the states to give
33 per cent reservation to women in their respective police forces though his
home state has failed to fill its quota for recruiting women cops. The 'beti
bachao abhiyan'-save the girl child campaign- is set to be replicated at the
national level, the women and child development ministry has made it clear
notwithstanding the fact that the achievements of the state in the
sphere is nothing to gloat about. In progress are studies to replicate
the concept of ‘hostels’ for milch cattle at the national level, a scheme which is still at a trial stage in Gujarat.
While there is a crazy race underway in Delhi to emulate
at the national level, everything that Modi thought about while in
Gujarat, a bird’s eye-view of the statistics of the time should put
things in better perspective. The Gujarat government, according to annual
budget records, was unable to spend Rs 2,073 crores in the five year period 2008-2009
to 2012-13, a sum allocated for different schemes in successive state budgets.
In certain cases, it even placed supplementary grants and raised the estimates
but did not spend, as planned. Biggest affected sectors were agriculture,
social infrastructure and fisheries. All this while Chief Minister Modi went to
town yelling his head off over injustice to Gujarat at the hands of a congress
led UPA government.
'Gujarat Model'
Though Gujarat under the present Prime Minister signed
30,434 MOUs in five bi-annual Gujarat global Investor summits between 2003-2011
for a mind boggling sum of around Rs 40 lakh crores, Official statistics speak
differently. It is Haryana which has been the most successful among 15 states
in converting investment proposals into reality with an 18.9 per cent
conversion rate. Gujarat lagged far behind with a mere 12.6 per cent followed
closely by UP with 11.4 per cent. Gujarat’s braggart claims of Rs 40 lakh
crores worth MOUs notwithstanding, according to the data from the
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion between August 1991 and March
2014 only Rs 5 lakh crores was actually invested in the entire country. The
comparison between proposed investment with actual implementation and job
creation speaks a dismal tale. In this period 94,000 investment proposals which
proposed investment of Rs 102 lakh crores were supposed to create 2.3 crore
jobs. Data shows only 5.1 lakh crores was invested and just 20.1 lakh jobs
created. In the investment to job creation ratio Gujarat was among the worst
states-MP, UP, Jharkhand and then Gujarat (Two jobs for every one crore
invested). So much for the Gujarat model.
Another example. The Mahatma
Gandhi Swachhata mission is the national flagship of the
Modi government. It has set a sanitation index (SI) as criteria. On his
home ground, 410 government - owned premises which is 48 per cent of the 847
failed to score even a minimum of 3 on the new sanitation index. Even the
newly constructed Swarnim Sankul-1 and 2 (cost Rs 250 crores) where the chief
minister and all ministers are housed also failed to get the highest sanitation
index of 4.5 (it scored only 4.1).
The bullet train between Ahmedabad And Mumbai which is being
energetically piloted by the Modi government, is expected to cost around Rs one
lakh crores, according to the latest estimates. It would be pertinent to note
what the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has to say in its latest report
released in the budget session of the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha recently. Over 5000
government-run nursery or primary schools (anganwadi centres) do not have
toilets at all. For all the tall talk, malnourishment cases and those
of anemia amongst children in Gujarat has grown by one lakh in
the last three years. According to the recent report of the state government
conducted annual school health programme (SHP) there number stood at
5,13,107 as against 4,13,107 children in 2012-13. Cosmetic showmanship or basic
needs, you decide.
Remember, necessity never made a good bargain for he that
lives on hope alone, will die fasting.
