DHARTI DHORAN RI ... MORAN RI A few questions about Rajasthan come to mind. How has Rajasthan managed to acquire itself the BEMARU distinction? When I look around, I find a state that is indeed rich in natural resources, limestone/marble, sandstone, slate, kota, Jaisalmer stone, now even oil has been struck in Barmer, rich in trading business, key halt in the spice trade, one out of every 3 foreign tourist visits Rajasthan, so there’s no dearth of foreign exchange earnings, textiles, handicrafts, educational institutions, name it, it’s there. Yet, the sporadic underdevelopment is quite startling. For instance, marble rich district of Kishangarh, places like Makrana don’t appear like they are benefiting at all from their marble resources. If the profits are not being ploughed back into the development of these districts then where are they going? I did a lot of thinking and inter alia came to one key conclusion that a lot of the poverty here is a created one rather than an actual one. Now why would one do that? For the same reasons that businessman would hide his wealth from the tax authorities. In the macro case it would probably be to tap into the common pool of funds provided in aid from the centre to the underdeveloped regions. Indeed if this is the strategy that has been adopted by Rajasthan to draw on national funds as aid, then I do think it is a highly outdated one. At the Union level, indeed we should not reward states for inefficiency paid for by taxing the more productive ones. Infact the neighbouring state of Gujarat, which more or less has similar topography, shares a certain similarity of culture has declared itself as achieving no less than 13 % growth, which also means that it must be paying the centre instead of taking from them and certainly to be considered a more forward looking strategy than what Rajasthan is pursuing. I don’t know what data has been used to get Rajasthan on to the BEMARU list or when it first made it to the list, but I can hazard a guess that it must have been another age and time. Today to think that poverty pretense can attract more funds is highly incongruous with modern day setting. Gujarat attracts the maximum FDI both in business as well as social sector. Rajasthan will be left vying for the low-end poverty-alleviation type of funding if we continue to follow the BEMARU-style strategy. Solutions must certainly be sought in more efficient management and sound administration. Does the law and order situation in Rajasthan deserve the BEMARU trademark? I doubt it. As a citizen, I would certainly like to see Rajasthan get-off the BEMARU list at the earliest as a first step towards fast-paced growth and development and start paying its dues to the nation as a whole, as indeed it is capable of doing. Do you think it is feasible to achieve this in your much expected imminent second tenure as CM of Rajasthan?
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 04:20:52 +0000
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