The Start-Up Strategy

Since its creation in 2000, Chhattisgarh’s growth model has focused on tackling Maoist insurgency and improving administrative efficiency and infrastructure

- Kaushik Deka

 

What Chhattisgarh does today, the rest of India copies tomorrow,” Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said at the India today State of the State Conclave in Raipur on June 29. The chief minister was explaining his model of development that has resulted in a sixtime surge in the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP)—from Rs 47,000 crore to nearly Rs 3 lakh crore—since Chhattisgarh became a state in 2000. The per capita income increased seven-fold, from Rs 12,000 to Rs 92,000. For this turnaround, Singh claims credit for pioneering some landmark schemes that the central and state governments replicated later, be it the right to food security or the right to skill development training.

Singh outlined how his government had inherited a legacy of poor development, bad infrastructure, terrible state of education and health and of regional disparity. The state is the ninth largest in terms of geography (35,191 sq. km), with 52 per cent under forest cover. Forty-five percent of its people lives below the poverty line.

Singh said he views Chhattisgarh as a “start-up” state that has challenges to overcome but also the potential to convert them into opportunities. The first move in the direction of a turnaround was the creation of new districts, increasing their number from 16 to 27. “By dividing the administration into small structures, we created efficiency,” the chief minister explained.