VADODARA, Jan 3: Former state finance minister and member of parliament Sanat Mehta has expressed serious concern over the lopsided development along the 450-km long industrial golden corridor from Chhatral in north Gujarat to Vapi in South Gujarat.Chairing a session on `Horizons of Gujarat in the 21st Century' organised as part of the World Gujarati Meet in Vadodara on Sunday, Mehta said while there was phenomenal industrial development from Chhatral to Vapi, the fruits of growth had not passed on to the State's eastern belt running parallel to the golden corridor from Shamlaji to Vapi.The former MP laid stress on ensuring that the gap between the eastern belt and the golden corridor does not increase, and said the State Government could ill-afford to ignore the agricultural sector.He said Gujarat would have to get alert also to the questions posed by large industrial investment. ``If the State does not think about all aspects, the development would prove hollow and do a great disservice to the people,'' Mehta said. The way things were going, he said, Gujarat would have to face major environmental and other problems in the 21st century.Former Union Minister of State for Planning Y K Alagh expressed concern over the abnormal gap between industrial and agricultural growth rates in Gujarat. He said against industrial growth of 11 per cent, agricultural growth is abysmally low at one per cent. He said Gujarat had seven agro-climatic zones which had great scope for agricultural development.He said Maharashtra was expanding 1.5 lakh hectares of land for horticulture every year with the help of NABARD, while Gujarat had not taken any such assistance from the agricultural development bank.Gujarat Ecology Commission chairman Hasmukh Shah warned the government and the people at large against ignoring environmental issues while going in for industrial development in the 21st century.
