Modi rebuilt quake and riot-hit Gujarat in just 8 years: MLA

Modi rebuilt quake and riot-hit Gujarat in just 8 years: MLA

Chicago: Anilbhai Patel, a US-educated Gujarati, is basically an engineer by education, an industrialist by profession and now a politician by a pick. He, who is in his sixties, has been in politics for the past eight years. His late entry into politics has been because he has been picked up by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Anilbhai Patel became the Gujarat Industries Minister, during his very first term as elected Member of Legislative Assembly. He is now an MLA for the second term.

Anilbhai Patel, who has been in Chicago, with which he has long association, spoke to India Tribune about his career and the achievements of Gujarat state under Bharatiaya Jayana Party government headed by Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Heading a $100-million highway construction company — Gujarat Apollo Industries, — Anilbhai Patel, who hails from Mahesana district, never imagined that he would be in politics. But Narendra Modi, who saw a spark in Anilbhai Patel, not only encouraged him to join politics but also contest the elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket. Anilbhai Patel’s thumping victory and his background as an industrial engineer, has encouraged Narendra Modi to appoint him as Industries Minister in the Cabinet. Under his role as the Industries Minister, Gujarat has seen tremendous growth.

In the early years of this decade, Gujarat’s economy was shattered first by a massive earthquake in 2001 and communal violence in 2002. But today, Gujarat is the highly developed state in India. Industrially it has been recognized as the number one state in the country. In fact, the state has achieved an all-round progress and its double digit GDP is the highest in the county and an envy of all other states.

Besides being an industrialist, Anilbhai Patel is also an educationalist. He is the president of NRI-supported Ganpat University with a 250-acre campus and a strength of 15,000 students. It was started 10 years ago with the support of Ganpat Patel of California.

Giving credit for Gujarat’s tremendous growth to Narendra Modi’s planning, farsightedness and selfless service and the support he commands from his ministerial colleagues, legislators, and the people of the state, Anilbhai Patel says that this Chief Minister is a great visionary. Suffered by two major incidents, at a time when he came to power, Narendra Modi needed to work hard to rebuild the state’s economy. As a first step to attract the foreign investment, the Chief Minister launched the Vibrant Gujarat project and sent teams of experts and industrialists to various countries, in 2003, 2005 and 2007 to popularize Gujarat’s potential for investment. Convinced by the state potential and the ability of the BJP government, foreign direct investment started flowing into the state.

With the 1600-km-long sea- coast, which is the longest in the country, the Chief Minister launched a port-led development. The state developed two LNG ports and laid a 3,000-km-long gas pipeline grid, which is the longest in the country. Besides developing the largest ship-breaking yard along the coast, a biggest shipbuilding yard and a ship repair workshop have been established in Dahej port in Bhavnagar on the Saurashtra coast. In the surrounding areas several scrap steel-recycling plants have come up creating several job opportunities. A most modern commercial petroleum products and chemicals port with a storage terminal is also located at Dahej. The state also has several successfully managed private seaports.

Anilbhai Patel says that for industrial development, Narendra Modi established special economic zones, petro-chemical industrial parks and created free trade zones all over the state. Gujarat is also known for its diamond industry. Eighty percent of the world diamonds are cut and polished in the state. With a long seacoast, the state also produces 70 percent of India’s total salt output. Therefore, several salt-based industries have come up in the state. Other major industries located in the state are textiles, chemicals, heavy engineering and ceramic tiles.

Even among the Indian states, Gujarat’s agricultural production has been the highest. The state’s farm growth rate is 8-10 percent while the country’s average growth rate is 3-4 percent. Mahesana is predominantly an agriculture district and famous for Unjha commodity and spices market. It is also the largest milk-producing district in the state.

Gujarat has a highly developed highway network and a private railway system connecting ports with major industries.

The MLA says that Gujarat has been laying special emphasis on education and in the last eight years 10 new universities have been opened. The number of seats in professional institutions like engineering colleges, medical colleges and pharmacy colleges have been considerably increased. Narendra Modi is keen on girl education. Consequently he has mobilized a campaign with the participation of all legislators, top government officials, and officials of the police department to meet in June, the beginning of each school year, and ensure that every child goes to school. As a result the school dropouts, have come down from 20 percent to 2 percent. Now more girls are also going to school.

Among the improved medical services, Anilbhai Patel, says that the “108 ambulance service” has become very popular. Under this service, in a medical emergency, if one calls the telephone No. 108, the operator provides free ambulance service with all primary medical facilities that will arrive in any part of the state within 10 minutes. Any pregnant woman can avail this service and the deliveries are conducted free of cost not only in government hospitals but also in private hospitals. Consequently the child and maternity mortality rate has come down. Schoolchildren are provided regular health checkups and expensive surgeries related to their hearts, and brains are conducted at the expense of the state government. All schoolchildren are covered by medical insurance and girl students are provided free transportation, free nutrition supplements and pills to treat iron deficiency.

He says that Gujarat has sufficient power for both domestic and industrial purposes. As many as 1,800 villages in Gujarat have 24-hour power supply. There is no death of power for industries. The farmers get guaranteed power for eight hours everyday. This restricted power supply is meant to avoid wastage and conserve the groundwater.

Anilbhai Patel says that Chicago is his second home because after his universityeducation, he worked here and has made many friends here. He came to the US in 1965 and did his Master’s in industrial engineering in Kansas State University. He worked in a Chicago downtown firm till 1969 and went back to Gujarat to start his own industry which now has grown into a $100-million Gujarat Apollo Industries with the collaboration of the US and Japanese firms.