"My people’s satisfaction is my biggest reward"

Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, recently completed 10 years at the helm in the western Indian state. Ruling with a firm hand, Modi,showed his capacities as an administrator and while politicians al around the country were getting tainted with large-scale corruption, Modi’s Gujarat has definitly edged ahead, taking rapid strides in many sectors. In an exclusive interview to Media India Group, Modi outlines his vision for the state.

Gujarat is known for its new initiatives, innovative approach and inclusive growth. But when I talk about achievements in terms of satisfaction, then I must say that I am satisfied because I feel that the 60 million people of Gujarat are satisfied. This is my biggest achievement as my ultimate motive is to ensure the satisfaction of my people. As far as development is concerned, take any initiative of Gujarat and the results are there for you to see. Take the power sector for instance- in first 40 years the state could add only 11000 mw of new electricity generation capacity and we added another 11,000 mw of capacity in just 10 years! Nowadays, everyone is talking of global warming and renewable energy; in Gujarat we have taken this far more seriously and taken several initiatives to promote renewable energy production. In fact, Gujarat is becoming the Global capital in terms of solar energy. If you talk of the social sector, we have achieved many feats here too. We have achieved 100 percent enrolment for primary education, we have an annual campaign for Quality education and in higher education, we became the first state in the world to start a Forensic Sciences University, we became the first state to launch the Rakshashakti University in India and we will also become the first place in the world to start a Children’s University. So, whichever index you take in the social sector, we have achieved quite a lot. In education and industry we have a lot of achievements. And even in agriculture, we have done quite a bit. In fact, Gujarat never used to figure in the list agricultural states of India as the state used to experience severe drought for seven years in every 10. Today, due to a number of water conservation measures, including water harvesting,check dams and micro irrigation and modern scientific farming techniques, we have managed a very major turnaround. Our motto is per drop, more crop. And our average annual growth is 11.5 pc, which is the highest in India as the country’s average annual growth in agriculture is only 3 percent whereas, for the first decade of the 21st century, our growth has been very high. Even in the milk production, we account for about 60 percent of the national production. In every walk of life, there are so many achievements, but as far as satisfaction is concerned, I always say that the satisfaction of my people is the greatest satisfaction for me.

There are so many areas where I could have better. Like media management, where I was absolutely a failure (laughs!). That is an area where I had to do something but I could not..

I always respect the NRIs and PIOs because they are the real ambassadors of our country. They are the cultural am bassadors of India. Through them the world knows what India is all about. So their contribution is very, very valuable and I respect that. Whenever I get a chance to interact with them, I am interested to talk about what they will do e for Gujarat or for India. Whenever I go overseas my first request to the NRIs and PIOs over there is that each of them should try and send at least five non-Indian families to India every year for a visit. If every PIO or NRI sends five non-Indian families on a visit to India every year, it will be a major boost to tourism in India. And once people will come to India, it is not necessary for us to give them lessons on what India is. They will see it for themselves. So we must do this. This is the greatest service that you can give to India. And to convince five families in a year, you require a lot of communication with them about India, you must be able to explain to them and guide them and for that first of all you need to know India. Thus it becomes all the more important for the nation.

The NRIs and the PIOs may not necessarily be very rich persons who can invest financially but they can certainly invest their experience. They can invest their talent and their knowledge and that is the greatest strength. It can really add value. They know about disciplined behavior in other parts of the world, they know the work culture, they know global best practices and if they can invest their knowledge and experience, they can do a lot of good to us. They are professionals. They are not necessarily multi-billionaires who can invest millions in an industry in Gujarat but with their experience and exposure, they can add value to hundreds of industries here. Thus they have a set of capabilities and India should utilize that. So I never ask for dollars or pounds, I always say please give your experience to Mother India.

Well it is great that I always receive invitations from Mauritius. In fact I had been there in 1998 or 1999- that was for a 10-day Ramayana Festival. It was a very good experience. Let me see when I can visit next. But as far as tie ups between Gujarat and Mauritius are concerned, there are quite a few areas. Gujarat has the oldest Ayurveda University in the world and the people in Mauritius are very familiar with Ayurveda. If students from Mauritius can come here and study in the Ayurveda University or if we can have a branch of our University over there, I am sure that our university can become a global university and people of Mauritius will get access to holistic health care. Tie ups can be explored for many other projects of cultural exchange.

Over the last 10 years, on several fronts Gujarat has become a model state in the country. Gujarat is the only state in India in which all the 18,000 villages receive quality power supply round the clock. As I said earlier, while the national average is roughly 3 percent a year, Gujarat has shown a double-digit growth in agriculture. On the industrial front, over the last 10 years, Gujarat has become the number one industrial state of the country, with very large and diversified industrial base. For the common man, from drinking water to infrastructure development, from education to employment and from transport to tourism, Gujarat has once again excelled on all these fronts. Of the areas where we are really putting a lot of efforts, but where I feel we need to do more, are the girl child education and improvement in the overall human development index. We are working hard on both the fronts to ensure the state performs much better here as well.

We have taken several steps to improve agricultural practices and also water conservation, in order to improve the lives of our farmers. Every year, before the onset of the monsoons, we organize a month-long KrishiMahastov wherein a team of officers, led by agriculture scientist guide the farmers at their doorstep about modern scientific agriculture. This takes place in all the 18,000 villages and has became a bench mark in the agriculture revolution. We adopted a lab to land approach. Due to Soil health card, the farmers of Gujarat now know about the right crop and right inputs for his soil. We also guide them about other aspects of agro-economy such as animal husbandry, farm forestry and farm gate value addition. Our efforts of water conservation have paid off and the water tables have come up. With Narmada waters reaching to hitherto arid areas of the state, thousands of hectares of land have been added to net cultivated area. The agricultural income in the state, which was only Rs. 140 billion in 2001 stands at nearly Rs 800 billion today. Not only this, since all our villages have round the clock electricity, broadband connectivity, all weather roads and other modern amenities, the quality of life of farmers has enhanced substantially. I welcome you to visit my state, talk to my farmers and see it for yourself.

We all know land is a limited resource and you need to smartly optimize it. We converted a lot of wastelands into cultivable lands with micro irrigation and modern agro tech. Due to our water conservation efforts, the ground water levels increased. Narmada waters reaching to arid and semi arid areas also increased the cultivable area. Yield per acre increased substantially thereby enhancing the per unit efficiency of land. This is how in Gujarat both agriculture and industry flourish together.

I firmly believe that agriculture, industry and services are three pillars of the growth model of the economy. We must balance between them. We have talked at length about our efforts in agriculture. So far as industrial growth is concerned, as I often say, industrial investments are now in auto pilot mode in Gujarat. We have developed robust infrastructure, we have established a policy driven, business friendly framework, we have institutionalized mechanisms in form of biennial Vibrant Gujarat Global Summits for business people from the world over to come and establish their businesses here and thus we have a perfect set up for handholding and facilitation. Many of you might be aware that in the fifth Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit held in January 2011, Memorandum Of Understanding (MoUs) worth Rs 20,830 bn were signed. One of the important results of this is creation of more than 100,000 new jobs for the youth of Gujarat.

Thriving SME sector is the biggest strength of Gujarat. Gujarat has been and will always capitalize on this strength. We are working very hard for modernization and qualityupgradation of our MSMEs. In fact, we have a special convention for SMEs in our Vibrant Gujarat Summits and they have been a huge success. You will be quite surprised to know that in the last Vibrant Summit, more than 50% MOUs (4417 out of total 8380) were signed by MSMEs.

Gujarat’s mantra is deploying wealth for welfare. Whether its industrial growth or building up robust infrastructure, each of our initiatives are undertaken keeping in mind the ultimate objective of ‘welfare of common man’ and has balance comes naturally. For example, even in events like Vibrant Gujarat, which are wrongfully perceived as ‘big ticket business events’, we keep the welfare of the masses in mind. Hence, we look at how much employment the MOUs would generate, we consider projects for building houses for urban poor, we focus on tieups for education, we have tie ups for health and sanitation sector and so on. To give you an example, during the last Vibrant Gujarat Summit, we launched Mission Mangalam, wherein the State Government, Corporates and NGos tied up empowering poor women and youth and project has taken off very well.

You are absolutely right. Delivery of benefits is a big challenge. For this we came up with an innovative idea of Garib Kalyan Mela where the beneficiaries are given their eligible assistance directly on a single day under one umbrella. The administration is geared up to identify the beneficiaries under various schemes of all the different government departments, process the claims and keep the assistance ready for delivery. Beneficiaries of the entire taluka (tehsil/sub district) are called at the designated place on the designated date and given their cheques, tools, equipments etc. There is no scope for agents or non delivery. This has been very successful. We have also decentralized and strengthened administration upto the subdistrict level for better delivery mechanism. Moreover, we have adopted e-governance very effectively lending transparency and better accessibility thereby improving delivery.

Gujarat was lagging quite behind in higher education. In last ten years the government has done a remarkable job in this area. Today, the state has not only set up a number of new universities, it has set up specialized universities-many of which are the only ones in the country and even the world. For the first time in the country, a Children’s University and Commission for education innovation have been established. We are the first state in the country to set up a world-class Forensic Science University as well as Petroleum University. We have set up a Raksha shakti University. The intake capacity of Medical and Engineering colleges have increased multifold in last ten years. Our colleges and universities are now tying up with World class institutions for better education and research.