And guess who’s praising Gujarat model now? It’s Pakistani daily

And this time Gujarat model’s admiration has found place in Pakistani daily newspaper. Presented below are the glimpses of an article published in Pakistan’s Nawa-e-Waqt group English newspaper ‘The Nation’. The title of this article is ‘Why do Gujaratis pay more taxes'(Gujarat Congress leaders would love this heading, but the content under this would spoil their mood).

-The State of Gujarat in India serves as a good example, which not very long ago was struggling to meet its fiscal obligations, but has, just in the last few years, reformed its management and become an example of good governance that should be emulated by other state or provincial governments.

-While India still ranks a lowly 171 amongst 183 economies on the ease of paying taxes, its state of Gujarat, on the other hand, is leading the way by showing other governments on how to deliver first and demand reciprocity later in the shape of taxes.

-As its governance improved, the tax collection responded in the same measure. For example, today Ahmadabad’s corporate payments on average and as percentage of the State’s budget exceed their counterparts in South Asia by 2 to 1 and nearly 7 to 1 when compared to similar sized areas within China and Brazil (BRIC members).

-So, what did the Gujarati government do right to achieve this? The answer: Nothing new or revolutionary, but simply the implementation, in letter and in spirit, of the basic prerequisites that all economists, politicians or bureaucrats must have known or at least heard numerous times.

-Look inwards and start by reducing corruption, lowering taxes, minimising regulatory burdens and red tape, supporting infrastructure and finance costs, and regulate the labour market.

-Gujarat during 2010 boasts of being amongst the top in India in terms of corporate friendliness measured in the light of (a) hours of power outages; (b) hours of telephone outages; (c) hours of sales lost in transit; (d) hours of sales lost due to power outages; and (e) days of inventories kept for main input (proxy for quality of transportation).