Data official,but Gujarat Govt says its misinterpreted

Comparing the sum total of investments promised in the MoUs signed at VGGIS meets with the sum of investments that had actually come in,is a wrong way of interpreting the success rate. Besides,investments in projects may still continue over the years.

Success should be assessed only on the basis of physical progress of projects that have materialised,and percentage of investments made in those.

A total of 482 out of 760 MoUs signed in the 2003,2005 and 2007 VGGIS have been implemented/are under implementation/or have commenced operation. This means a 60.63 per cent success rate and not 20.5 per cent,as The Indian Express reported.

Entrepreneurs do not give the Government actual figures of investments they make from time to time. Therefore,the Government8217;s own data used for its Chief Secretary-led panel8217;s review of the actual progress of VGGIS meets cannot be used to measure success of VGGIS.

The Indian Express replies:

The Gujarat Government does not deny that facts and figures quoted in the report came from the state Governments own official document,which The Indian Express had accessed. This 52-page document was put together by the state industries commissionerate. This was the pivot data used to assess the state of VGGIS MoUs,at the Chief Secretary8217;s review meeting held with 16 top state bureaucrats and 11 senior state officials concerned. This meeting was the last in a regular series of periodic reviews of VGGIS,using the same but regularly updated document.

While the Government says its own official data used for evaluation and review of VGGIS at the highest official level cannot be used to measure the success rate till then,it does not mention on what Chief Minister Narendra Modi had based his public claim of a 61 per cent success rate in the first three VGGIS meets. Modi did so while his governments data said that only Rs 130354.36 crore of a total projected Rs 633829.9 crore had thus far come to Gujarat.

The Government does not say if the Chief Minister based his claim merely on MoU numbers 482 projects claimed to have been implemented or are under implementation,against the original 760 proposed. If the actual investment till that point is used instead,the actual rate,according to the state Government document,will be 20.5 per cent.