Monday, December 03, 2007

Gujarat shows SEZs can be blessings

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/Swaminathan_A_Aiyar/Gujarat_shows_SEZs_can_be_blessings/articleshow/2588290.cms
The part of the Gujarat story that you do not get to here in Tehelka

This blog has long been advocating manufacturing moving to wastelands - we need agriculture to feed ourselves. Food security is bigger even than energy security - you cannot drink crude to stay alive after all.

We need a western-corridor strategy in India to have heavy manufacturing in the desert of Rajasthan and link it to a port/trading network in Gujarat. The transportation costs cannot be huge - they are adjoining states - though geographically spread out. The barriers to overcome are not insurmountable
1- Rajasthan is some way from mineral-ore, raw materials etc. and input cost of goods will be high
2- Rajasthan has huge energy deficits - but Maharashtra and Gujarat are doing well here and can spare energy - which is transportable of course - think future - how about a solar-based manufacturing hub?
3- Railway links through the desert are hard to lay and maintain - I am sure the likes of E Sridharan can do a miracle

4 comments:

habc said...

Rajasthan just got 1.55lakh crore ($40 billion) in MoU's at the Resurgent Rajasthan summit
I guess they are no loner a BIMARU state under BJP rule.

Moser Baer just announced India's largest grid connected solar farm in Rajasthan just as we were discussing the other day.

As per my info Rajasthan is not energy deficient even today. It is Maharashtra which has huge energy deficits.

Thar Desert – The NextGen Powerhouse of India

habc said...

and here is why states under Kaangress rule never get developed quickly. They need lots of poor people to win elections by making promises like this


Cong promises free ration, colour TV in Gujarat



"If the Congress comes to power, the party will give ‘yellow card’ to 20 percent of poorest of poor families under BPL (below poverty line). They will be given 25 kg wheat, 10 kg rice, 4 kg dal, 5 kg sugar and 15 litre kerosene free of cost every month," Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee president Bharat Solanki said here on Sunday.


The party promised a colour television to each BPL family, besides development of minorities, deprived and weaker sections of the society if voted to power in the December 11 and 16 Assembly polls.

The Congress said it would form a Minority Economic Development Corporation for welfare of religious and linguistic minorities.

"The Congress government will give house construction and business loan for minorities through co-operative banks. The Sachar Committee recommendations will be implemented in line with the Centre's policies," the manifesto said.

"There is more than 46 lakh hectares of land in the state which is unused. A policy will be evolved to allot 100 yards plot per family belonging to the deprived sections like the SCs," he said.

And here is the BJP's idea of development

Narenbhai, messiah of growth


"The Congress wouldn't be able to do in 50 years, the work that Modi has done for us in five years," declared Rajesh Bohda, 39, the deputy village head of Shapar.

"The macro picture is marvellous. The kind of rural prosperity here is remarkable," said professor Ravindra Dholakia at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. "Gujarat is the only state in the country where inequality is declining, real agricultural wages are rising, and rural employment is increasing."

Shapar, where tankers brought water earlier, now gets piped water, and every home has taps. There is a telephone exchange, a 66 kilowatt power sub-station, two community centres, and a well-networked sewage system. There is a primary school, and a high school is being built.

All schoolgirls get bicycles. There are streetlights, and once every month, the village headman gets to talk on video conference directly with the chief minister.


any psecs want to argue on these two competing visions? Kaangress as can be seen is a nightmare for India. At least Sonia could follow the biblical injunction of teaching men to fish instead of handing out "FREE" fishes.

san said...

I think I'm starting to admire the Bush/Republican strategy of bankrupting the US Govt, because it prevents their Leftist opponents from offering the usual sops (free colour TV, free rice, etc) to the vote banks as bribes.

We need to think about the same strategy, which is known as "starve the beast".

karyakarta92 said...

Well, following the idiotic Kaangress logic, if we can gift $30 million + 50,000 tonnes of rice + 25,000 tonnes of wheat to East Pakistan - it should be ok to dole out these things in Gujarat as well. Lets at least be a real Socialist state, shall we?
My real irritation is with the free TVs. How dare these morons promise just free TV without free Cable or Satellite Dish connection?
Are the people supposed to watch Stalinist Doordrashan only with the mandatory eulogies to the Nehru dynasty? Free Cable is a must - the masses absolutely need access to Bollywood bimbo trivia, cricket coverage and of course, overt and covert christist propaganda on NDTV, Star Tv etc. Right? The fellow who made this promise should be brought before a firing squad for offering a bum deal.