Rebuttal to 'Modi's Gujarat model: Much ado about nothing'

Mr. Tehseen Poonawalla is a Congress person, so one can expect criticism against Modi/BJP in his blog. But he made some factual error in his comparative analysis. First of all he should have made very clear where did he take his data from? What is the basis of selecting the sates in his comparison study? Even I have done the similar comparison study. My study is based on the latest data taken from the planning commission website, so nobody can point finger at me of fudging the data. I considered the data between FY02 and FY12, since longer period of data analysis provides the better overview of economic activities.

Let me start with per capita income. If one considers the per capita income on absolute term as of FY12 first and second place is occupied by Delhi and Goa. However, I selected six states based on industrialisation, size, SGDP, politics etc. Those states are Andra Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharshtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Among these states Maharshtra (Rs.64951) and Haryana (Rs.62927) comes 1^st and 2^nd respectively while Gujarat (Rs.57508) comes 3^rd on per capita income as on FY12. When I closely looked at the growth of per capita income between FY02 and FY12, Gujarat grew by 3.2 times, while Maharshtra and Haryana grew by 2.9 and 2.5 times respectively from their FY02 per capita income. At the same time national per capita income grew by just 2.3 times from its FY02 value. Therefore, I can confidently say that author hasn’t done his per capita income comparison study properly.

Now, coming to the state GDP growth rate comparison, author again didn’t make clear which GDP growth data he is using in his study. There are two GDP growth data one is based constant price and another is based current price. Based on constant price GDP growth data, Gujarat growth rate for the period between FY02 and FY12 is 10.1%, which is maximum growth rates out of the for the six states selected. While the same for Maharshtra, Haryana, AP, TN, Kerala and India is 8.85%, 8.94%, 7.83%, 7.76%, 7.98% and 7.71% respectively. Therefore, again the author is incorrect in his analysis.

With regard to state debt, author is not consistent in his selection of states for comparison. This was least expected from one who is analysing the economic parameters. The better way of analysing state debt is considering the debt as a percentage of GDP. On absolute debt value one can’t make any conclusion on health of state’s economy. Therefore, when I had a closer look at the state’s debt as a percentage of GDP for the above six states Haryana has the lowest debt with 17.06% while other states have 20.51%, 25.84%, 18.14%, 19.89%, 28.37% respectively for AP, Gujarat, Maharashtra, TN and Kerala. I also studied the % drop in state debt between FY02 and FY12. Gujarat showed highest drop in debt with 12.94% while the same for other states is 10.53%, 10%, 10.61%, 6.36% and 9.53% respectively for AP, Haryana, Maharashtra, TN and Kerala. A study of fiscal deficit also showed that Gujarat performed better than the other states with 2.16% of GDP. Below table gives the overview of economic parameters for six states considered in the comparison study.

Now coming to the 2002 riot, author should keep in mind that no court so far held Modi guilty of anything, rather SC appointed SIT given clean chit in its report submitted to the court. Therefore, I would rather believe in the SC monitored agency and wait for the court verdict than the opinion of a Congress person/supporter. Similarly, in case of fake encounter cases, why Congress government is objecting the court’s decision to set up SIT to investigate all the fake encounters took place in the country? Why is this double standard? Congress proclaims to be secular why its leaders always defend the alleged terrorists and belittle country’s intelligence agency?