Gujarat: One year under Anandiben Patel

As she completes one year in office, Anandiben Patel (pictured) is ready to face the first real test of her government - elections at 315 local self-government bodies including municipal corporations in October. Patel is confident of victory, not just because of the development work by her government, but also thanks to the fact that many women support her, and she believes this womens' vote would result in at least a two to three per cent increase in vote share.

Ever since she took charge as the chief minister of this industrialised state, Patel has paid close attention to improving the state's social development indices. A standard criticism against the predecessor Modi government was, it focussed primarily on business. Be it through her schemes for encouraging women to come into animal husbandry, pension schemes for women self-help groups, or launching the Dudh Sanjivani Yojana which provides milk to tribal children and those in primary schools, the past two state budgets have Patel's distinct stamp on them.

Stepping away from an industry-centric budget for the second time in a row, the Anandiben Patel-led Gujarat government presented a social sector focused one, early this year through a focus on education, nutrition and health care.

In the state budget, 48.53 per cent or Rs 38,484.15 crore of the total outlay of Rs 79,295 crore for the year 2015-16, the social sector - health, education, women and youth related schemes and other such projects - saw the highest allocation, followed by irrigation and flood control at Rs 13,937.19 crore.

Patel has cleverly turned her short-comings into success. She is not a great orator, unlike her predecessor, yet she has struck a chord with workers and villagers in speeches.

There are, nonetheless, similarities to Modi such as being a strict taskmaster, working long hours and being an able administrator. Modi's relocation to New Delhi had led to an exodus of efficient bureaucrats from the state (around 10 of them) to New Delhi. Yet, Patel has managed to keep the rest of her team.

She has been careful to keep up the pace of work in all of Modi's pet projects; be it solar power capacity addition, Statue of Unity, Ahmedabad metro rail project, Gujarat International Finance Tech City (India's first international financial services centre), or even the Vibrant Gujarat Summit. At the valedictory session of the latest edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2015, Patel announced a three-tier review panel to ensure speedy implementation of projects announced during the event.

SOME INITIATIVES & NOVEL APPROACHES

• Personal review meetings and monitoring as routine practice
   
• Replaces flowers and garlands with fruit as welcome gesture in public programmes, to tackle malnutrition
   
• Fast-tracking of Gandhinagar-Ahmedabad Metro-link Express
   
• Various revenue reforms, including regularising bonafide purchase of land
   
• New organic farming policy to encourage sustainable farming and promote organic fertilisers
   
• Fast-tracking housing facilities for the urban poor at affordable costs
   
• Gujarat accounts for 60% of household-toilets built in India in 2014-15, says Ministry of Urban Development
   
• Three-tier mechanism for speedy implementing of Vibrant Gujarat memoranda of understanding

Source: Government of Gujarat