Ahmedabad: Union minister Piyush Goyal while addressing a press conference of Gujarat BJP here today thanked the people of Gujarat for giving leaders like Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to the nation.

Goyal while speaking about the background of BJP’s upcoming Gujarat Gaurav Yatras said the leadership, Gujarat offered is now benefiting the entire nation. One of most popular leaders across the world has been given to the nation by Gujarat.

Goyal shared some figures describing how Gujarat achieved quantam jump in development journey under BJP in last few years.

He said GSDP in Gujarat increased by 15-fold between 1995-96 and now from Rs 72,000 to 10 lakh 4,000 crores.

Gujarat’s annual budget size increased from Rs 10,873 crore 20 years back to Rs 1 lakh 71,000 crore – almost 16 fold higher.

Goyal said Cotton production has been up from 24 lakh bales to 91 lakh bales, groundnut output has been doubled, fruits output has been four fold up, vegetables 6.5 times high, milk production has been 3-fild up, forest cover has increased by 3,000 square km contrary to reduction elsewhere, gross irrigated area has been doubled contary to Maharashtra where under Congress rule it failed to increase even after spending Rs 70-80,000 crores. Industrial production in Gujarat is up with 15-fold increase in output – from Rs 84,000 crore 20 years back to Rs 12 lakh 70,000 crores in 2014.

Goyal said his first visit after becoming power minister was to Gujarat which was like a student. He had come to learn whatever was done in Gujarat in power sector. If the nation became self sufficient in coal sector and if power situation improved drastically nationwide, it was Gujarat model responsible for it which was just copy pasted on national level be it feeder separation of rural electrification. Thanks to this per capita consumption is up by 3 fold.

Goyal further said, 20 years ago there were 7 universities in Gujarat while today there are 57. Number of engineering colleges rose from 20 to 238. Polytechnics are 3 times more. Employment figure has been up from 37,000 to 2,56,000.

Goyal said Gujarat Gaurav Yatras are planned to celebrate this Gaurav of Gujarat.

DeshGujarat