Gujarat to grow at 15.5% in 2022-23 fiscal; GSDP to double in next 5 yrs

This growth rate in the current fiscal is tad lower than the 19.6 per cent growth clocked post-Covid, during 2021-22.

“In the next five years, the Gujarat government has targeted to increase its GSDP to Rs 42 lakh crore and more than double it to Rs 83 lakh crore in next 10 years,” Mona Khandhar, Principal Secretary (Economic Affairs), Finance department said after the budget presentation ended in the legislature.

“Currently, Gujarat contributes 8.36 per cent to the country’s GDP. The government aims to take the share of Gujarat in the country’s GDP to 10 percent or more,” she added.

According to J P Gupta, Principal Secretary, finance department, Gujarat will be borrowing Rs 30,000-35,000 crore during 2023-24 and this will push the public debt to Rs 3.81 lakh crore. The public debt stood at 15.02 per cent of GSDP for 2023-24 which is an improvement from 15.75 per cent in 2022-23. The public debt in 2022-23 stood at Rs 3.39 lakh crore and it is projected to rise to Rs 4.8 lakh crore by 2025-26.

Though the fiscal deficit of Gujarat remained below the prescribed three per cent of GSDP, the projected deficit for the year 2023-24 stood at 1.75 percent which is slightly higher than the 1.64 percent in 2022-23.

The state taxes have registered a CAGR of 10.5 per cent during the period 2011-12 to 2022-23.

State’s own tax revenue — Value Added Tax and Goods and Services Tax — are the highest contributors, accounting for 76 per cent of the total own tax revenue in 2022-23.

Both these taxes have seen an annualised growth rate of 11.31 percent between 2011-12 to 2022-23. Land Revenues too have grown at an annualised growth rate of 8.44 percent during this 12 year period.