Vibrant summits failures, Gujarat in fiscal mess, says Congress

On a day when the eighth edition of Vibrant Gujarat Summit was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gandhinagar, the Congress termed the biennial events as “highly PR driven initiatives” that have been in reality “failures”. The party released official Gujarat government data and information collected through the Right to Information Act (RTI) to dispel the various claims of investments having come to the state through the biennial event since 2003. In fact, with the state’s growth rate dipping, said Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil, Gujarat stared at a huge debt of ₹2 lakh crore.

“The BJP government in Gujarat has been making huge claims over the years on the economic growth of the state through investment made in the Vibrant Summit MOUs (memorandum of understanding). But official records give a contrary picture,” said the former Gujarat Assembly opposition leader, while addressing the media in the national capital on Tuesday. The Gujarat Government claims that from 2003 to 2015, Vibrant Summit brought in investments of ₹84.55 lakh crore through MoUs. “This investment claim is close to India's total GDP size,” said Gohil. But, authentic data from Gujarat’s Industries Commissionerate shows that the industrial approvals for 33 years since 1983 has been only ₹9,51,980 crores.

Moreover, Gujarat’s official Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) as per budget documents in 2015-16 was ₹9,84,971 crore. “If ₹84.55 lakh crore was invested in Gujarat, why does it not reflect in the real GSDP growth rate? This clearly rubbishes the claim of Gujarat government citing huge investments,” the Congress spokesman said. Even the GSDP growth rate (see table) has been the lowest in the last decade, as per the Statement under Financial Responsibility Act (FRA) published with the last budget. Worse, it predicts that the Gujarat’s public debt will cross a whopping ₹2 lakh crore. “If Gujarat Government's claims of investment are true, then why is the growth rate going down?” said Gohil.

“VIBRANT GUJARAT A PLATFORM FOR CORRUPTION”

The many MoUs don’t translate into actual investments and are just propagated through a strong PR exercise, Gohil said. Bursting the bubble of Gujarat being a favourite destination for foreign investors, he pointed out that Gujarat got only $2.68 billion for 2014-15 and 2015-16, constituting just 5.13% of the total share in FDI that came into the country. On the other hand, Maharashtra attracted 20.16% and Delhi 29.2%.

During the 2009 Vibrant Gujarat Summit, Narendra Modi as Chief Minister had claimed that the power sector alone had attracted investments through 31 MoUs worth ₹2,11,895 crore that would generate employment for over 58,000 people. “However, none of these 31 MOUs have translated into anything for the state and people of Gujarat. Rather, these companies have used Vibrant Gujarat as a platform to inflate their share values and attract financial institutions for more funding,” alleged Gohil.

“Vibrant Gujarat is nothing but a platform for BJP's corruption and companies have used Vibrant Gujarat as a platform to inflate their share value and attract financial institutions for more funding,” alleged Gohil, adding that there have been cases of “land grabbing through such project announcements”. For instance, the state government had given away precious land worth ₹144.5 crore to a private company SE Transstadia at a throwaway price flouting all government norms, Gohil alleged.

Gohil said that the state BJP government has been “indulging in corruption by giving prime land to industrialists at negligible price” in the name of MoU of Vibrant Gujarat. “This had been exposed by a Supreme Court order,” he said, pointing out to the apex court setting aside the order of then Gujarat Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel to allocate land to a company, Indigold. The Court in its judgment held the order illegal and ordered a compensation of ₹3.15 crore.

Gohil, however, pointed out that the Gujarat government has not been recently announcing the details of the MoUs and investment. The same perhaps may be expected of the 2017 Summit as well: High in hype and low in actual outcome.