Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel enlists support of Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee

Chhattisgarh government has succeeded in enlisting the support and assistance of Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee in implementation of decentralised development in the state on the lines suggested by Mahatma Gandhi. Prof Banerjee’s team is likely to visit Chhattisgarh later this year to do make on-ground assessment of various initiatives of the state government.

Reports from the US speak of several fruitful discussions that chief minister Bhupesh Baghel had during his week-long tour of the country. The CM visited San Francisco, Boston and New York and spoke on different subjects at the UN as well as at Kennedy School at Harvard University.

The CM is also learnt to have met investors and Indians and people from the state residing in the US. Officials accompanying the CM claimed that the NRIs and Americans of Indian origin had evinced considerable interest in investing in the state, especially in food processing, agriculture technology and the mineral sector. The CM was candid in saying, it is learnt, that his economic vision is centred around the village and the welfare of the poorest. His government’s focus was to help the farmers and the villagers. If villagers became prosperous, he declared, prosperity would then flow to the urban centres also. The CM’s unusual presentation was received warmly, officials said, and he was invited to visit Harvard again.

The CM called on Nobel Laureate and economist Abhijit Banerjee at MIT, Cambridge and invited him to visit Chhattisgarh. He also visited the Sloan School of Management and discussed the finer details of socio-economic surveys of indices and independent social audit.

There was harmony in the state and no caste conflict, asserted the CM during an interaction. He also said that Chhattisgarh is now politically stable, peaceful and has social harmony and thus, endowed with mineral reserves, it is poised for another leap.