Ahmedabad

If India has to grow at 9.4% growth rate, then manufacturing growth rate must be at 12 to 13%, and for that manufacturing growth in Gujarat must be at 15-16%, said, Secretary Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Shri Amitabh Kant (IAS) who was in Ahmedabad today to promote upcoming ‘Make in India’ week.

“India is center of growth with annual 7.4% growth. There’s slow down across the US and Europe…. China’s growth rate is 4.5%, but India is growing at 7.4% rate. India however has to grow at 9.4% rate, and if India has to grow at 9-10% growth rate, it has to be 12-13% in manufacturing sector. In October it was 10.6% but we must be able to take it to 12-13% and for that Gujarat’s manufacturing must grow at 15-16%,” Kant said during the interaction with media persons.

He added that Gujarat contributes 22% export, 8% national GDP, 10% work force nationally…. Gujarat is driver of India’s manufacturing and exports and therefore Gujarat must be key driver and it is very essential.

Kant observed, “Gujarat has grown at very high rates for a very very long period. One you have grown for a very long period, the challenge there becomes that you have to look at bigger projects of size and scale. Those are in the planning stages and probably in one or two years you will see many more projects coming up. And my belief on this is – in one-two years you will see Gujarat will emerge as one of the key champions of India’s growth.”

He further said, “some years you will have depth, some years you will have rise but you(Gujarat) have grown for a very long period. Gujarat must take pride for that it has grown for very long period at very high rate. Ease of doing business study has given number one rank to Gujarat. It’s the World Bank evaluation that shows Gujarat is number one.”

He said, “Earlier ranking of ‘Ease of doing business’ was on the basis of fewer points while this year we have given 340 points of which 180 are MSME related. The challenge for Gujarat is to come again as number one, as Andhra Pradesh is very close. There will be very good competition among Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and many states.”

In reply to a question that which state is attracting most manufacturing related investment proposals, Kant said, ” In next 3 years period I have a feeling that Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu will be … and let me warn all these three stats that Andhra, Telangana, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh are working very hard. If mineral resource rich states including eastern Uttar Pradesh ease up, they become very easy place and therefore Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu face huge competition and huge challenge”.

In reply to a question related to state-specific sessions in the Make in India week event, Kant said, We initially wanted to give incentive and encouragement to only those states who have come 1st, 2nd and 3rd that are Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand for presentation because they have emerged as business friendly, but there’s so much pressure that every state wants to participate … from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka … because so many international delegations are coming. So now all the states that want to participate are welcome. This is good competitive federalism.

In reply to another question Kant said, “When we did this 100 point competitive challenge to the states we did not realise that there will be so much of compeittion. Last year we did the ranking. This year we have given 340 points. We have created a dynamic model which will come up by the end of this month. States which make the changes can make themselves evoluation that whether they are going up or goung down in the ranking. It’s the dynamic model that we are building. So states can make the changes and see it for themself whether they are going up or down. In these 340 points there’s huge amount of competition that is taking place. We are working with states. We are doing work shops. Several states are working very very hard. I have never seen so much competition . That’s a very good sign.”

– DeshGujarat