Skip to main content

Spike in Gujarat’s public debt has been 'consistent' with increase in Modi influence

By RK Misra*
Estimates may deign to deceive but figures ferret out facts. In Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, the government’s cumulative public debt has shot up to an astronomical Rs 2,96,268 crore which is almost Rs 75,000 crore higher than the size of the state’s budget estimates of Rs 2,17,287 for 2020-21 placed in the State Assembly on February 26.
The projections for 2022-23 see this debt burgeoning to Rs 3,71,989 crore in 2022-23. An assertion in the State Assembly would have you believe that a every child in the state is born to a burden of Rs 48,000.
On March 31, 2012 this figure was Rs 23,163 (calculating the state population as Rs 6 crore). Gujarat hit headlines recently when it splurged to give a spectacular welcome to US President Donald Trump during his three hour visit to Ahmedabad.
Gujarat’s public debt has been consistent with the rise of chief minister Narendra Modi who took charge of the state in October 2001, except with one notable difference. While Modi’s political fortunes soared Gujarat’s sank deeper into the quicksand of debt.
When he first came to power in 2001-02, the actual debt was Rs 45,301 crore and after he left for Delhi in 2014,the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) put the total debt of the state for 2015-16 at Rs 2,21,090 crore.
In fact, a Reserve Bank of India(RBI) study of state budgets (2015) had revealed that Gujarat’s outstanding liabilities, also identified as “total debts”, have crossed Rs 2 lakh crore in 2014-15, reaching Rs 2,100.4 billion or a little above Rs 2.1 lakh crore, up from Rs 1.9 lakh crore in 2013-14, a 10.19 per cent rise.
When the BJP first came to power in Gujarat in 1995 the public debt was around Rs 10,000 crore and barring a 16 month interruption continues to be in power to this day with Modi being its longest serving chief minister in history.
Modi rode into Delhi as Prime Minister riding astride a thumping mandate which was largely attributed to the ‘sterling’ model of development that he had successfully implemented in Gujarat. A cornerstone of this model were the bi-annual Gujarat Global Investor Summits.
Beginning with the first one in 2003 up to the seventh one in 2015 the Gujarat government declared it had signed a total of 51,378 memorandums of Understanding (MoU) worth a total investment of a mind-boggling Rs 84 lakh crore with the 2011 summit alone accounting for Rs 20.83 lakh crore in proposed investment in the state. In the run up to the eighth summit in 2017, then state chief secretary JN Singh claimed an implementation rate of 66 per cent for the past seven editions.
How would it compare when weighed against the fact that the GDP of India for the year 2017-18 was Rs 131.180 crore? In fact, the figures being trotted out at these summits touched such ludicrously bloated levels that it subsequently stopped quantifying it in rupee terms and later even dropped the word ‘investor” from the summit.
According to the figures published by Gujarat’s own Directorate of Economics and Statistics only about 8 per cent of the Rs 40 trillion of the investments proposed at the summits from 2003 to 2011 have been implemented. Figures show that Maharashtra without any such ‘gloss and glam’ show bagged 30 per cent of India’s total investment between 2000-to 2016 while Gujarat ranked fifth with 4 per cent.
A Department of Industry Policy and Promotion (DIPP) study has brought out that Gujarat’s share in actual cumulative Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) inflows to India between 2000 to 2013 broadly coinciding with Modi rule in Gujarat was only 4 per cent.
Gujarat garnered only Rs 39,000 crore out of the cumulative national FDI of 9.1 lakh crores. More significantly Gujarat’s share in the kitty had been under decline from 3.4 per cent in 2011 to 2.9 per cent in 2012 to 2.4 per cent in 2013.
Figures being trotted out at Vibrant Gujarat business summits touched such ludicrously bloated levels that it subsequently stopped quantifying it in rupee terms
The benefit accruing from the summits to Gujarat were only a fraction of what it achieved for Modi. Aided by APCO Worldwide, the US global public affairs and strategic communications consultancy, which had been hired to promote the summit, Modi hop, step and jumped from a ‘Hindu hriday samrat’ (Hindu heart throb) to development messiah through the hard-hyped Gujarat Model to become the Prime Minister in 2014.
The CAG report for the period ending March 31,2014 (Modi rule) placed on the table of the Gujarat Assembly on March 31, 2015 busted the myth of the model.
It ‘willfully’ understated revenue expenditure and overstated revenue surplus. Between 2009-2014 the state government invested Rs 24,007 crore in its PSUs and got a return of a mere 0.31 per cent by way of dividend, huge land parcels were given away to favoured industrial houses.
Over the same period 70.95 lakh pregnancies were registered but there were only 57.66 lakh deliveries and no effort made to find out why there were 13.29 lakh less deliveries. The figure of malnourished children in the state stood at 2.7 lakh.
Education fared no better. Implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) as well as other educational schemes, particularly in the tribal areas was rated poor. The expenditure against available funds was only 12.67 per cent in 2011-12, 14.09 per cent in 2012-13 and 22.42 per cent in 2013-14. Sixty four schools with a total strength of 5,698 had no teachers, while 874 schools had only one teacher.
Gujarat under Modi claimed to be a power surplus state which provided electricity round the clock. In a written reply in the Assembly it was stated that 32,500 million units of power had been purchased from private players in 2014 as against 32,500 million units the previous year(a 13 per cent increase) while the state owned power units contributed a mere 26,122 million units. The pending applications for agricultural power connections stood at 1.77 lakh.
In hindsight, all the grand memorials of extravagance -- the multi-crore Swarnim Sankul to house the chief minister’s office with a helipad to match, the Rs 400 crore Mahatma Mandir, the Garib Kalyan Melas, Shaala Praveshotsavs, Khel Mahakumbhs and the numerous other state-wide ‘spectacles’ were initiated and ballooned on borrowed money!
The splurge continues as the state continues to slide. Malnourishment in children has increased by 2.41 lakh children in the last six months since July 2019 to 3.83 lakh.
Over 15,000 newborns or 21 per cent of those born or admitted have died in government hospitals in the state in the last two years. Over 5,200 primary schools are planned to be closed down in the name of school mergers with tribal, Dalit and minority areas being worst casualties. There are 3 murders, four rapes and 8 kidnappings every day.
The mandays under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Agency scheme (MGNREGA) went down by 8 per cent in 2019, compared to the previous year. In all 4,05,06,503 man-days in 2018, while it was 3,72,88,935 mandays in 2019. Thus there was a reduction of 32,17,568 mandays.
Replication of the Gujarat model countrywide had been a promised priority. And as a mark of continuity the total debt of the Modi-led central government increased by 54 per cent to Rs 84 lakh crore between June 2014 and March 2019, according to the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.
Remember, every current decision always carries a future cost- good, bad or ugly!
---
*Senior Gujarat-based journalist. Blog: Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers 

Comments

TRENDING

Wave of disappearances sparks human rights fears for activists in Delhi

By Harsh Thakor*  A philosophy student from Zakir Hussain College, Delhi University, and an activist associated with Nazariya magazine, Rudra, has been reported missing since the morning of July 19, 2025. This disappearance adds to a growing concern among human rights advocates regarding the escalating number of detentions and disappearances of activists in Delhi.

‘Act of war on agriculture’: Aruna Rodrigues slams GM crop expansion and regulatory apathy

By Rosamma Thomas*  Expressing appreciation to the Union Agriculture Minister for inviting suggestions from farmers and concerned citizens on the sharp decline in cotton crop productivity, Aruna Rodrigues—lead petitioner in the Supreme Court case ongoing since 2005 that seeks a moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops—wrote to Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on July 14, 2025, stating that conflicts of interest have infiltrated India’s regulatory system like a spreading cancer, including within the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Aggressive mining operations: With 70% of Maharashtra’s forest cover, Gadchiroli is on brink of environmental collapse

By  Raj Kumar Sinha*  A looming ecological and social disaster is unfolding in the forests of Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. Over 1.23 lakh trees are set to be felled for mining activities—an alarming development that has sparked widespread protests from Adivasi communities and civil society organizations. They are urging the state and central governments to immediately halt all mining-related approvals and operations in the region. They are also calling for a complete review of all clearances, including Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and Detailed Project Reports (DPR), based on holistic ecological, hydrological, and social assessments. These groups demand that forest corridors and tiger habitats be recognized as protected areas, and that the laws under the Forest Rights Act (2006) and PESA Act (1996) be strictly enforced. Most crucially, they insist that decisions made by tribal gram sabhas be respected through transparent public hearings.

Overriding India's constitutional sovereignty? Citizens urge PM to reject WHO IHR amendments

By A Representative   A group of concerned Indian citizens, including medical professionals and activists, has sent an urgent appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to reject proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) before the ratification deadline of July 19, 2025. 

Farmer 'stripped, assaulted' by BSF jawan in West Bengal border village: Rights group urges NHRC to act

By A Representative  A disturbing incident of alleged custodial torture and public humiliation has been brought to the attention of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) by a leading human rights group, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), involving a Muslim farmer in a border village of West Bengal. In a formal complaint, Kirity Roy, Secretary of MASUM and National Convenor of the Programme Against Custodial Torture & Impunity (PACTI), has urged the NHRC to take urgent action following an incident that occurred on the morning of June 12, 2025, in Hakimpur village near the India–Bangladesh border under Swarupnagar police station, North 24 Parganas district. According to the complaint, 38-year-old Jahar Ali Gazi, a resident of Hakimpur Uttar Para, was on his way to his field in Kadamtala Math around 7:30 am when he was stopped by an on-duty Border Security Force (BSF) jawan near the 7 No. Outpost of Hakimpur Border Outpost (143 Battalion). The location...

India’s zero-emission, eco-friendly energy strategies have a long way to go, despite impressive progress

By N.S. Venkataraman*   The recent report released by OPEC’s World Oil Outlook 2025 has predicted that by the year 2050, crude oil would replace coal as India’s key energy source. Clearly, OPEC expects that India’s dependence on fossil fuels for energy will continue to remain high in one form or another.

The Empire strikes inward: Britain’s colonial legacy now targets its own citizens

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak   British colonialism may belong to the past, but the colonial mindset of the ruling elite in Britain persists. Today, these elites are applying colonial values and repressive political tactics not abroad, but to their own people. 'Home' is now where British colonialism is taking root—threatening civil liberties and undermining liberal democracy. The criminalisation of dissent has become a shared political practice across the Conservative and Labour leadership.

Ecological alarm over pumped storage projects in Western Ghats: Policy analyst writes to PM

By A Representative   In a detailed letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, energy and climate policy analyst Shankar Sharma has raised grave concerns over the escalating approval and construction of Pumped Storage Projects (PSPs) across India’s ecologically fragile river valleys. He has warned that these projects, if pursued unchecked, could result in irreparable damage to the country’s riverine ecology, biodiversity hotspots, and forest wealth—particularly in the Western Ghats.

Gurdial Singh Paharpuri: A lifetime of revolutionary contribution and unfulfilled aspirations

By Harsh Thakor*  Gurdial Singh Paharpuri, a Central Committee member of the Communist Party Re-Organisation Centre of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPRCI(ML)), passed away on July 2, marking a significant loss for the Indian Communist Revolutionary movement. For six decades, Singh championed the cause of revolution, leaving an enduring impact through his lifelong dedication to the global proletarian movement. His contributions are considered foundational, laying groundwork for future advancements in revolutionary thought. He is recognized as a key figure among Indian Communist revolutionary leaders who shaped the mass line, and his example is seen as a model for revolutionary communists to follow.