Strong leadership, business friendly environment pulled MP from BIMARU status: Jaitley

Madhya Pradesh was once in the category of BIMARU states, but a strong leadership coupled with a business friendly environment and ever-growing as an educational hub, has helped the state to shed off its past image, said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday during the fifth edition of Global Investment meet in Indore.

He pointed out that the state used to be historically disadvantage with majority of tribal settlements after the state was carved.

"When different states were carved out and different linguistic states formed, there was an area in the centre of the country which got left out and that disjointed area became one state. They carved out Maharashtra on one side, when they carved out Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, it had a large tribal population, it had very little development and in the planned regulated economy, we coined the BIMARU states, i.e. economically backward states," he said.

Jaitley said Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's focus on social schemes, special emphasis on 'bijli (electricity), paani (water), sadak (road)' had helped the state to achieve double digit growth in agriculture, thereby bringing prosperity to farmers.

Jaitley pointed out that Madhya Pradesh is a successful story of transporting water from one part of the state to another where the Narmada was brought to different parts in Madhya Pradesh. It also shares the river water with adjacent states like Gujarat.

"Madhya Pradesh should now be able to attract large international investment as also domestic investment which engulfs the entire India story. Generation for power, electricity and this was accompanied by spending the resources of state in empowering people," he said.

He said that with the implantation of Goods and Services Tax (GST), when India becomes one market, there would be good flow of trades and services across the nation and this seamless flow across the nation will contribute significantly to the nations and as well as backwards states' progress.