By Rajiv Shah
Top Gujarat-based social scientist, Prof Ghanshyam Shah, has accused the Gujarat government of "overtly and covertly
undermined the existing labour laws which provide some protection to workers" in order to invite investments in Gujarat. "The state government has amended labour legislations to provide freedom to industry
to employ labour on contract basis", he said, adding, the result is, "Ahmedabad has the lowest
labour costs among the major cities in India, with labour costs less than 50
per cent of those in Delhi and 40 per cent below those in Pune."
Writing in the book "Studies in Indian Politics", published by the Centre for Study of Developing Societies' SAGE Publications, Prof Shah's chapter, "Politics of Gujarat: A Study of Gujarat", underlines, "The wage bill
for industry in Gujarat constitutes only 2.42 per cent of the invested capital.
The same figure stands at 4.04 for Karnataka, 4.4 for Maharashtra, 4.94 for
Andhra Pradesh, 5.42 for Haryana and 5.5 for Tamil Nadu."
He adds, "Sizeable labour force
is in informal sector without social security and other benefits under the labour
laws. Stipulated minimum wages by the Gujarat government are lower in all occupations in
Gujarat than Maharashtra and several other states. Not only that but the Labour
Commissioner’s office, whose responsibility is to implement labour laws and
protect labourers’ interest, has been reduced in its strength-- both in number
and power. Its functioning is further weakened."
Suggesting that Gujarat's governance is meant basically to appease the corporate sector to the detriment of common people, on one hand, and natural resources, on the other, Prof Shah says, this is one major reason why under the neo-liberal regime, the bureaucrats are favourites of the industrial houses. "Most of them come from upper
strata of society; hence they can very easily build rapport with entrepreneurs.
Money power and social networks of the entrepreneurs match with bureaucrats’
mindset. Businessmen believe in keeping the bureaucrats in good humour. On the
whole the investors, in the past and today, are very happy with Gujarat’s
bureaucracy and appreciate its efficiency", he adds.
Pointing out that in the 1960s, Gujarat was known for production of textiles, Prof Shah points out how today, "chemicals and petrochemicals have become major industries with 62
per cent share in the total industrial production of the state." In fact, "medium and
large industries have increased nearly eight-fold between 1980s and 1990s", and in the last decade, "on an average more than six hundred new projects were
sanctioned to launch."
This brought environmental pollution to the fore. Even here, instead of following the principle of polluter pays, Prof Shah said, "in the 1990s the government initiated and encouraged
industries to develop Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) largely supported by the public funds: 25 per cent of the cost was state
subsidy; 25 per cent central government subsidy; 30 per cent loans from the
financial institutes; and remaining 20 per cent paid by the industries."
Even then, most of
the plants do not meet the norms prescribed by the Ministry of Environment and
Forest of Government of India. "The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report of 2010–2011 noted that ‘treated’ waste
water out of CETPs had four to ten times more toxic than Government’s own norms
in terms of biological oxygen demand (BOD) value, three times higher in case of
chemical oxygen demand (COD) values and four times higher in terms of total
dissolved salts (TDS)", he notes. The CAG report also noted how this has caused ‘large-scale death of aqua stock in the
rivers’ in the recent past.
Highlighting that the government was aware of increasing adverse and
deadly effects of pollution on the vast population, Prof Shah says, "But it does not have
courage to displease industrialists. It has a fear that strictly enforcement of
the pollution control norms would go against the interest of the factory
owners. And, it is feared that they would go away from Gujarat and may also
discourage new investors to come to the state. The government which is obsessed
with high economic growth and to become front-runner in the market is caught
with contradictions of its own making."
Saying that all this is part of the "neo-liberal economic reforms", Prof Shah says, "Inducements have been
multiplied in the last two decades. In the institutional structure capital
investors are treated as the only stakeholders for industrial growth. They are
involved in decision making and monitoring process. Labour has no place
therein. Administrative procedures have gradually minimised. Bureaucrats are
generally benign towards capitalist class. They are now professionalized and
geared to follow the best practices of the corporate world into the government
to accelerate economic growth."
He adds, "Nevertheless,
from the perspective of neo-liberal economy such governance may be qualified as
‘good’. Gujarat however is not the only state with high growth trajectory.
Maharashtra, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh are at par or even ahead of Gujarat in
GDP, investment and per capita income. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Punjab are not
far behind."
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