PC rolls out data, says Gujarat an ‘average state’

Taking BJP’s PM candidate head on, Chidambaram released a set of statistics to back his argument.

Dismissing the Gujarat model of development propagated by Narendra Modi, Finance Minister P Chidambaram Saturday said Gujarat was an “average state” given its performance in key social and economic indicators and termed Modi’s claims that the model can be replicated in other states as “exaggerated and boastful”.

Taking BJP’s PM candidate head on, Chidambaram released a set of statistics to back his argument. It showed Gujarat ranked 15th in rural poverty headcount and 14th in overall poverty headcount ratio in 2011-12. The state stood 9th in human development index in 2011-12, 8th in infant mortality rate in 2012, 12th in literacy rate in 2011, 14th in quality of government expenditure and 9th in infrastructure.

Besides, it ranked 22nd in coverage of roads in 2011 and 10th in households with electricity in the same year.

Chidambaram said the ranking in some cases was among all 28 states, in some among the 19 bigger states and in some among the 22 states of which data is available.

“It is clear that Gujarat is an average state. It is somewhere in the middle or a little above the middle. It is neither the best performing state, nor the worst. So touting the Gujarat model as a model that has universal relevance and can be applied universally throughout India is an exaggerated and a boastful claim which I reject,” Chidambaram said. “It will be much better if the CM of Gujarat moderates his claim and places Gujarat where it really belongs.”

On the economic front, he said while the current account deficit has been contained, the government will achieve the fiscal deficit target as projected in the interim budget. The CAD, he said, for the year ended will be $32 billion — or 1.7 per cent of the GDP — as against $88 billion the previous year or 4.7 per cent of the GDP. He said there has been shortfall in overall tax collection in the last fiscal.

The CAD has not only been fully financed but $28.5 billion has also been added to the reserves, he said. “So these are good signs. The economy going forward can only become stronger,” he said. On tax collections, he said the revenues are “more or less as expected”.